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p. This is an extremely useful map “showing Tube stations”:http://rodcorp.typepad.com/photos/art2003/tubewalklinesfinallmfaint.html that appear to be far apart on the Tube map, but are actually close enough to enable you to walk between them. This is the reason that I usually carry both a Tube map and a London AtoZ when I travel around London.

p. I don’t go up[1] to London very frequently these days, but when I was growing up in Surrey, going to London for the day was a real treat. Travelling on the train to Victoria station was always exciting (imagine that—getting excited about travelling on the train!), and when I saw the huge towers of Battersea Power Station, I knew that we were nearly there. I also loved the Tube with the ghostly sounds of a busker playing the saxophone somewhere down a tunnel, and that gust of Underground smell that would herald an arriving train. Scent is such a slippery evasive thing for the memory, but I know that if I smelt that smell blindfolded, and with no other sensory cues, I would know exactly where I was.

p. I’ve always enjoyed walking around London too (except Oxford Street—that makes me feel like a salmon battling up a waterfall). I have a number of favourite routes that I take down quiet lanes and past interesting sites, but I pride myself on just being able to strike out in the general direction of my destination and pick my way through the back streets until I get to my goal. Of course, I do carry the AtoZ in case my rather fragile sense of direction gives out on me, or the sun—which I use as a compass in towns—disappears behind thick overcast.

p. [via “BoingBoing”:http://boingboing.net]

fn1. For some reason, London is always ‘up’.