Why I Keep Coming Back to London
The first time I arrived in London was on the wrong train.
I’d spent two weeks in Paris. Longer than intended but somehow not quite enough. Would I ever feel so in tune with another city as I had with the French capital? That thought was still circling in my head when someone tapped me on the shoulder and politely informed me I was in their seat. Certain that couldn’t be right, I confidently flashed my ticket. My far-too-forgiving fellow passengers pointed out was for the day before.
Summoning a burst of previously untapped speed, I grabbed my bags from the rack, stepped off the Eurostar onto the Gare du Nord platform, and approached a staff member with what must have been a fairly desperate expression. In an apologetically broken French-English hybrid, I explained that we’d somehow made it through security, customs, and onto the train with the wrong ticket. He asked me to wait.
I snapped this quickly on my way across the Millennium Bridge. It's one of the pictures in my head when I think of London.
Thinking I’d completely stuffed it up, I watched as he dealt with another couple at the counter: yelling, photographing him, blaming him for what looked like a similar mistake. Moments later, he returned, smiling, and slipped us a boarding pass for the next train out. It was First Class. Sometimes it pays just to be polite.
A few hours later, after a delightful chat with the ambassador to Trinidad and Tobago sitting in the next seat, I finally arrived at St Pancras. And it felt, somehow, like coming home to a place I’d never been before. The icons, yes, but more than that: I could feel the history in the streets. It’s a sensation that returns every time I do, and one that keeps drawing me back to London, again and again.
The infinite variety of London
“Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale/Her infinite variety.” Sure, Shakespeare was writing about Cleopatra, but the author whose eponymous Globe draws more than a million visitors a year could just as easily have been describing London itself.
Growing up in Australia, London always felt impossibly far away. Yet for anyone visiting London from the other side of the world, that distance only seems to deepen the connection. Coming from a country still clinging to its colonial roots, and as the descendant of both convicts and magnates in equal measure, I’ve always felt an intangible pull toward the city. Maybe it was just that after-school TV viewing was always a combination of Grange Hill, Press Gang, and The Goodies. The BT Tower still seems to be standing after its encounter with Kitten Kong, though.
The population of Greater London is two to three times that of my Sydney home, but crammed into a fraction of the space, one of the first things you notice when you arrive in London, jet-lagged and wide-eyed, ready to explore. It’s that sea of people that washes over you immediately, what P. B. Shelley called “that great sea, whose ebb and flow/At once is deaf and loud.”
Or maybe it’s the sheer exhaustion of the trip from the Antipodes. From the east coast, it takes close to 25 hours to reach London, whether via a stop in Perth, Singapore, Hong Kong, or one of the Middle Eastern hubs. The last time we arrived, stepping off a flight in the early morning, we spent hours wandering in a daze through Magdalena Abakanowicz’s giant hairy sculptures before following a Pearly Queen up a graffiti-filled alley. Days later, we’re over the jet lag, eating Ethiopian street food on Brick Lane, spotting a Banksy tucked down a side street, and knocking back craft beer in Hoxton while a bartender from Perth tells us about the barrel room. It’s moments like these that remind me why I keep coming back to London, a city that never stops surprising you.
London’s layers
What keeps me coming back to London isn’t just its sights, but its layers. Every street feels like a document written over with centuries of history: inscribed, erased, and rewritten. Take the commemorative water pump at 1854 Broad Street (now Broadwick Street) in Soho. It was once the epicentre of John Snow’s investigations into the cholera outbreak, and some say pivotal in modern data visualisation. Today it’s surrounded by a chocolatier, boutique shops, and a Japanese restaurant. Down the end of the street is a pub. We sit in the window and watch life continue almost two centuries after an epidemic took tens of thousands of lives.
The distinctive pointillist swan mural by Jimmy C on Redcross Way.
On some trips, it’s all about theatre in the West End; on others, we head straight for the Bermondsey Beer Mile. Our ever-evolving Google Map pins the Ziggy Stardust plaque just down the road from the equally iconic Liberty. We drink at a bar where Dickens once sat, buy yoghurt pots in the shadow of St Paul’s. In infamous Whitechapel, a gallery now celebrates marginalised voices. We walk from Hyde Park through the Georgian townhouses of Mayfair — where there’s a literal Bacchanalia — and eventually land in Leicester Square, assaulted by commercialism.
My home has over 50,000 years of continuous history. It’s in the land, the waters, the air, and the stories. London, by contrast, is just two millennia old, yet there’s something magnetic about a city where Roman ruins sit beside Victorian pubs and gleaming towers of glass. Hop on a boat at Embankment and, in forty minutes, you’re in Greenwich, the place by which the world once standardised time itself.
My favourite London spots
Oscar Wilde once said that “If you love London, you can conquer the world,” and there’s so very much I love about London.
Shoreditch
Once known for its Victorian-era poverty, Shoreditch is now a hub for creatives, foodies and culture. From the iconic Brick Lane and its maze of shops and eateries — not least of which is Old Spitalfields Market — to graffiti-filled backstreets, contemporary art galleries, and countless spots for a craft pint, it’s a place that always feels alive. My favourite thing is just to follow a trail of street art and see where it takes me.
Tate Modern
I’m not exaggerating when I say we could spend all day at the Tate. Of all the museums and galleries in London — and some sources suggest there are as many as 200 — this mix of modern and contemporary works sits inside one of the city’s most striking buildings. The Herzog & de Meuron design, with that cavernous Turbine Hall, dwarfs and envelops the visitor, inviting exploration and a new discovery around every corner. Few galleries have ever come close for me.
Lunch in Soho
You’ll never be short of places to eat in London, but there’s something special about lingering over lunch in Soho. On our most recent trip, we got hooked on the Indo-Chinese cuisine at Fatt Punditt, especially given how vegetarian-forward it is. I’ve also long loved Mildreds, with its fully vegan menu and small but satisfying house beer list.
Cecil Court
I don’t always buy something, but I couldn’t call myself nerdy without admitting I’ve pressed my face against the windows along what most know as “Booksellers Row.” One of these days I’ll splurge on that first edition of Blood Meridian. Sometimes it’s not what I buy, but the thrill of spotting a book I didn’t know I was looking for. Until then, you’ll find me browsing Henry Pordes Books near Covent Garden.
South Bank Book Market
Now here’s a place I do buy books. Under the Waterloo Bridge, this decades-old market is a treasure trove for everything from modern fiction to antiquarian gems. Last time I was there, I walked away with a stack of vintage James Bond comics. Chances are, I’ll then wander over to the nearby BFI and stock up on a few arty DVDs or Blu-rays.
“It is only magnificent.”
I know London isn’t exactly an obscure destination. If you’re already planning a visit, you hardly need me to tell you why it’s great. Yet for me, the city keeps me tethered on an elastic band. It’s not an easy city all the time. It is certainly not an inexpensive one. I might set off on a cruise, dive into the nightlife of Seoul, or end up on an art farm in New Zealand, but I’ll always be pulled back toward the Square Mile. “Sir, when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life,” wrote Samuel Johnson, “for there is in London all that life can afford.” Lily Allen put it more succinctly: “Oh why, oh why would I wanna be anywhere else?”
