A walk in London

Day 3: After a day of seeing the famous monuments and palaces of the Royal Parks, a day of shopping on overcrowded Oxford Street and a morning at the incomparable British Museum, I'm raring to check out some of the stuff I've been reading about in my guidebook that caters to my particular interests. And with my wife busy at the work function that has brought us to London, I have a chance to undertake a little solo expedition.

From our hotel on Bloomsbury Street--in the district once haunted by the likes of Virginia Woolf, Charles Darwin and George Bernard Shaw--it's just a short walk to Tottenham Court Road, and from there, south down Charing Cross Road into the bustling heart of Soho.

The crowds here are just as thick as they are on Oxford Street, but there's a different feel to them. For one thing, they seem to skew younger; here you'll find rough-looking old guys and guitar-case-slinging musician types literally rubbing shoulders with skinny, chain-smoking fashionistas who look like models. They're also more ethnically diverse, if that were even possible in a city of London's multicultural variety.

My first stop is Foyle's, England's "Bookseller of the Year 2008." The fiction section winds throughout the store like a literary Thames, in row after row of the best books ever put to page. I can't turn my head in any direction without spotting dozens of titles worth owning, and it takes me less than five minutes to find three treasures I've been coveting: The Epic of Gilgamesh, and two by Dostoevsky. (In Edmonton I've been hard pressed to find an unmolested copy of The Brothers Karamazov; here I have to choose from three editions in a corner section three rows deep.)

Proceeding south, I stroll past the block of tiny but thriving Chinese restaurants, all enticing me with the smell of roast duck and chicken broth and steamed rice, and I realize that a few minutes ago I crossed Shaftesbury Avenue. I'm walking the same streets that inspired Mark Knopfler to write "Wild West End."

Eventually my hunger gets the better of me, so I duck out of the hubbub and into Wagamama, one of a chain of Asian noodle houses recommended in the guidebook. The place is in a low-roofed basement, down a long flight of stairs. There are no individual tables, only long rectangular ones with wooden benches running the length of them. I grab some spicy chicken with noodles, which turns out to be impressively spicy, and a battered-shrimp appetizer suggested by the server. The server writes my order in some kind of shorthand on the paper placemat in front of me; within moments the appetizer arrives. The food is affordable and delectable, served fast and hot. Highly recommended.

From there, I keep heading south. I spot a building that has been inescapable over the last three days: the National Portrait Gallery. Until now I haven't had a chance to check it out--along with its next-door neighbour, the National Gallery, it's scheduled for later in the week--but now I find myself with a spare hour, so I follow the tide of patrons through the revolving doors. I manage to see about half of the permanent exhibits, including two favourites: one of Shakespeare, purportedly from life, and one of the wickedly irreverent Earl of Rochester, John Wilmot, caught in the act of bestowing the poet laureate's crown upon a monkey. I've seen both portraits plenty of times in books and online. But the hint of a smirk on Rochester's lips, like the light of intelligence that seems to shine through the Bard's eyes, has a life you don't notice--maybe can't notice--until you stand in front of these portraits and see them, as it were, in the flesh.

An alarm bell rings to announce the impending end of viewing hours, so I reluctantly leave the gallery and head back up the opposite side of the street I came down, to catch the smaller bookstores and music shops I had noted from the other side. At Denmark Street I make a quick detour to window-shop the vintage guitar stores as their proprietors close up for the day. The prices are a little high, but not too far out of the usual range for the kinds of instruments they're selling. In one window I see the unmistakable shape of a Brian May custom six-string. It's selling for 549 pounds (just under $1,000 Canadian), and I feel a sudden urge of guitar lust brought on by having seen We Will Rock You, the all-Queen musical, just two days earlier at the Dominion Theatre just around the corner from our hotel. The store is closed. I move on.

Five minutes later, I'm back at the hotel. In just over three hours, I've been to the best bookstore I've ever seen, eaten at a place that I already know I must try again at least once before I leave this city, stepped down streets steeped in history yet living thrillingly in the moment, and stared long into the knowing eyes of genius. This is London.