TALE OF TWO CITIES - TWO

 LONDON

We were less surprised by the ethnic diversity of London than Paris as it has always had a sizable population from its former colonies.  However, these populations have grown substantially since 2015.

After returning from France, our location for this stay is up in Teigan's neighborhood, Camden. This is in north central London, walking distance to the lovely Regent's Park (featured in "The King's Speech").  Also nearby is Camden Market.  I think most major cities have an area like this: artsy, bohemian, youth oriented and drawing alternative lifestyles.  New Town, Sydney; Bo Kaap/Long Street, Cape Town; Le Plateau, Montreal; Christiana, Copenhagen; and our own Capital Hill in Seattle (making national news as CHAS or CHOP during 2020 protests).  

New Town, Sydney

Long Street, Cape Town

Le Plateau, Montreal

Christiana, Copenhagen

Capital Hill, Seattle

Camden Market Food Stalls along Regent Canal, London

Camden Market, London.  
"1 £ / photo for beer"

Similar to Paris we spend our days here walking different neighborhoods or districts.  Most of our routes are from Teigan's guide book "33 Walks in London That You Shouldn't Miss".  Being preoccupied with upcoming travel and moves, Robin took the lead organizing each day's walk.  By the time we leave we'll have done over twenty.  For map geeks like myself, I'll try to orient the walks described below.

Camden, where we stayed, and Camden Market, is right of Regent's Park, the green squarish park  top left of center.  We walked along the Thames from Fulham at the far left to Canary Wharf at the south river bend of East End (not labeled). Hampstead is upper left of center, and Notting Hill is S and W of Hampstead. Spitalfields is centrally located in the East End and Mayfair-Marylebone is just SW of Camden below Regents Park.  And The City of London's high-rise architecture is on the river just left of the East End.  In addition to these, we walked most of the other districts, but limited time, and your patience, I've avoided descriptions.

Central London Districts and Boroughs

Along the Thames.  We walked from Tower Bridge, across the river from Burroughs Market, five miles east to the modern development at Canary Wharf. This was a continuation along the Thames of our Fulham to Burroughs Market walk in December.  That walk was mostly through industrial, commercial, and governmental developments.  East of Tower Bridge covers some great history: Roman ruins, Tower Bridge, the Tower of London, and historic wharves.  There have been wharves here since the fifteenth century.  These wharves and warehouses are from when London was the world leader in global trade - and income from taxes. Many have since been repurposed to apartments overlooking the river. Canary Wharf has been completely redeveloped as a second financial district.  Enroute we had lunch at the oldest waterfront pub in London, where Charles Dickens had a quaff or two.

Tower of London and castle along the Thames.  
Portals along road historically opened to the river for delivery of goods and collection of taxes. 

Illustration of seventeenth century wharf at Tower of London and Castle.

Prospect of Whitby pub on the Thames from Circa 1520 and Henry the VIII.
Charles Dickens had drinks here with fellow writers.

Prospect of Whitby on Thames.  
At high tide (and it was) the river floods the basement and
boats can't go under bridges past Winchester.

Seventeenth Century Warehouses now apartments along the Thames

Canary Wharf, completely redeveloped as second financial district.

Hampstead is a posh neighborhood north of Camden.  The folk etymology is that POSH is formed from the initials of port out starboard home stamped on the more expensive tickets referring to the comfortable accommodation, out of the sun's heat, on ships between England and India.  Though some doubt that, I like the explanation. This neighborhood was the first we've seen with single family homes instead of row-houses, and a charming village High Street, wrapping around another eponymously named park (we'll walk the park soon).  Looking in the real estate windows the home prices seem to range from a "modest" £1.5 million to £9 million, with an average around £3.5 million.  (£1.00 = $1.35).

John Keats' home in Hamstead Heath from nineteenth century.  

Notting Hill, in London's West End, is another posh neighborhood made famous by a RomCom chick-flick of the same name staring the most toothy of actors Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts.  I couldn't make it through without a running snarky commentary so I left it for the girls to enjoy.  However, Notting Hill's past is more interesting than the celebrities that made it famous.  Before the 1950s it was a lower working class neighborhood of Irish and other impoverished white families.  The now trendy four story terraces were divided into flats and those divided into rooms for multiple generations.  In the 1950s Britain's West India immigrants, the Windrush generation, so called after a transport ship, could not find housing in other parts of London due to "no blacks allowed", so the landlords of Notting Hill exploited the situation and rented rooms to multiple black families.  (Those tenement flats housing multiple families in one room - they now sell for over £4 million, and it's for only one family.) 

Former tenement slum housing, now posh real estate

As they moved in and worked for lower wages than the already poor whites, tensions rose.  The whites also did not like the "shebees", jazz and gambling houses, that came with the Caribbean immigrants.  This tension finally broke into Britain's worst race riots in 1958.  In 1964 Malcom X came to Notting Hill in support of the black community, and in 1966 Muhammad Ali took a break from his training in London to show support.  This was the same time period that my west-side neighborhood in Chicago was racked for years with race riots - literally burning down our business district a block away.  There are still empty lots needing investment.  (These social movements ripple globally when the time is ripe.  Eighteenth and nineteenth century American and French revolutions, and the European Spring for freedom from monarchy all occurred in sequence.  First round of civil rights across the western countries in the sixties - eighties.  Unfortunately, it can go both ways.  Along with todays BLM and civil rights movement, I believe we are seeing an authoritarian and xenophobic movement across the world in reaction.)  

Running north from Notting Hill Station is Portobello Road, the heart of a new immigrant community.  Parts of that vacuous film were shot on this street for "character".  However, as you progress north it is less upscale and you hear the patois of Portuguese, Caribbean, and Middle-Eastern merchants, as well as the French, German, and Spanish visitors.  The shops evolve from restaurants to see and be seen, to vendors selling racked clothes on the street, to antique trinkets and dishes on tables, to a mile long gauntlet of tented food stalls with shoulder to shoulder people on the weekend.  Dynamic environment.  

Portobello Road and food stalls

Antique Arcade along Portobello Road.

The East End, at the other end of town, has another interesting community - Spitalfields.  "For centuries, Old Spitalfields has been a haven for the disposed.  The French Huguenots fled here from Religious persecution in the 1700s, while the Irish arrived during the potato famine.  Later still, it became a refuge for Eastern European Jews who had escaped the Polish Pogroms in Russia."  (From our walking guide).  It is now home to a thriving Bangladeshi community.  Street signs are written in both english and Arabic, a local church has been converted into the Jammu Masid mosque with a dramatic modern stainless-steel minaret, and shops sell all sorts of middle eastern fare.  Passing the mosque a funeral procession exited and it seemed the entire male community was present dressed in their thobes and kufi. 

Brick Street and Jammu Masid Mosque in Spitalfields.

Mayfair is a walk we did yesterday and will be the last commentary.  I originally became familiar with Mayfair when our London office was located in this district.  As the PIC of international I took several trips to engage them on financial performance, market strategy, annual reviews etc.  That said, the trips were enroute to other destinations, and I never delved into its past or present much.  Mayfair is probably the most posh district in central London and has a long history of being so.  Many warrants were issued by the Royal family to bespoke businesses here that supplied them:  Thomas Goode and Company designs and manufactures the Royal Family's chinaware for over 175 years; Purdey provides custom guns and rifles for over 200 years, and in 1886 Huntsman, on Saville Road, received their first warrant as bespoke tailors to the Royal Family including Prince Albert, Prince of Wales, Lord Mountbatten, and prominent figures such as Winston Churchill, David Niven - actor.  (Also Huntsman is featured in the British spy comedy "The King's Man".  In such a high brow environment, other luxury brands fill out the district:  Tiffany, Louis Vuitton, Hermes, and Maison Goyard established in France in 1853. There was a line outside this last shop that sells traveling trunks for up to £100,000!  Mostly Indian, and middle eastern women with some men, probably distant KSA royal relatives living in London on sovereign wealth.  From an aesthetic and design perspective they can beautiful, from a societal perspective I have to say it disgusts me.

Thomas Goode, Warrant to China

Purdey, Warrant for bespoke fire arms

Elegant Mayfair bespoke architecture

Huntsman bespoke tailors below street level showroom where work is done.

The City of London.  Unlike Paris, London developed no grand urban master plan, even after the great fire of 1666.  As previously noted, London roads are laid out on ancient footpaths or carriage routes through the wilderness or farms, some from Roman times. This contributes to a higgily piggily layout through all the Boroughs.  There are few grand boulevards, nodes or landmarks to visually organize and orient.  One notable exception is Trafalgar Square, with a statue of Lord Nelson atop a Corinthian Column.  My father use to quote the English during WWII that the bronze statue would tip its hat to every virgin that walked by.  A reflection of the time during American occupation... and my father's generation preoccupation.

Lord Nelson not tipping hat.

In addition to its lack of urban planning, the general architecture is brown and red brick of the Victorian era.  Like most cities after their destruction by fire, new codes required cladding in brick.  While some of the signature buildings in this style, like the train stations or governmental buildings, are quite lovely with red brick and contrasting buff precast/stone detailing, the majority are unadorned and present a rather gloomy visage. Older residential neighborhoods in my birth-town of Chicago after its Great Fire have a similar dingy feel with brown brick.  

Lovely Victorian Era St Pancras Rail Station.

However, the City of Light, even on a cloudy day, seems brighter and cleaner than London. The consistent white buildings reflect even the dimmest of cloud cover into the crevasses of the city.  One urban characteristic where London excels is contemporary architecture.  While most of the city is composed of drab eighteenth and nineteenth century brick buildings, or boring post-war functional institutions, the financial district in the City of London and Canary Wharf host a collection of modern high-rises that are innovative and well done.  Paris, in contrast, is a uniform nineteenth century canvas, or modern attempts trying too hard.

The "Gherkin" 

The "Queens Step" and City Hall.  (Don't understand that name".

"The Microphone" City of London Borough.   

"The Shard" in Southwark

Surprisingly, we also think the London food scene is better than Paris.  Whist (we've been in the UK too long) there are the ubiquitous pubs and bistros respectively in each, the variety of quality international restaurants in London seems greater.  As so much in France, it's all about french because they believe it's the best.  We thoroughly enjoyed the simple fare of a bistro, however, after a while you long for diversity - as in most things in life.

Next Post:  Ancient Mediterranean  

TALE OF TWO CITIES - ONE

"It was the best of times..."      

Multicultural cities with equitable representation in media and politics.     

"It was the worst of times..."    

Dilution of historic culture, loss of context, changing character.        

                                          

"It was the age of wisdom..."   

Black Lives Matter, reform policing, sensitivity to diverse perspectives.      

         

"It was the age of foolishness..." 

Xenophobia, division, defund police, cancel culture.

In 2015, at the beginning of the European immigration crises, Robin and I lived in NYC, that most multicultural American city, and I wrote in my blog: 

"American culture is not based on 500+ years of traditional dress, rituals, music, or aristocracy.  We are an ever-changing demographic mix rejecting, incorporating, and blending these other cultures into our own "creole". Our culture is a culture of change... However, I can't help but reflect on our culture of immigration and change relative to the current mass migration to Europe from war and economic ravaged countries.  European countries (as most of the world) have long cultural traditions and cultural identities.  They are not a product of constant change and immigration like America.  They are a distillation, not an amalgamation.  How does a culture and self-identity survive when overwhelmed by another without time to absorb?...   These are historic times. There are no easy answers."

PARIS

After Cornwall we spent a few nights with Teigan enjoying her new apartment and neighborhood. We then got another round of Covid tests and filled out the PLF to enter France.  We boarded the EuroStar train at London St Pancras bound for Paris.  What a change from my first visit forty-two years ago.  I also took a train from London to the continent. It also crossed the English Channel at Dover, but back and forth decoupled onto a ferry, crossed, then back and forth recoupled in Calais. This time we traveled at up to 190 mph in the channel tunnel (Chunnel). It was an overnight trip then. We arrived in 2.5 hours.

We've each have been to Paris multiple times since then, however the last was in 2015.  We arrived at Gard du Nord at dusk, and walked the 40 minutes dragging our roller boards to our hotel located near Pompidou Center.  We hardly saw any ethnic French, the streets were littered, and there were people sleeping in doorways, Metro stations, and street tents; and instead of bistros were ubiquitous Indian, kebab and Chinese restaurants. 

Metro station in Paris

Tents on streets of Paris

Multi-modal transportation has been embraced by the people and the city: cars, busses, bikes, electric bikes, motorcycles, scooters, electric scooters, skate boards, roller skates, one-wheels, Segways, mom's with prams, and pedestrians looking at their iPhone, not where they are going. There are curb separated lanes, traffic islands, painted paving, and multiple colored lights for different vehicles pointing in different directions in different places.  As a pedestrian we felt in constant peril; not sure by which type or from which direction you're going to get hit - but sure we were.

Bikes, Cars, Signs in all different directions

Moms, Prams, dual bike lane, rental bikes

After checking in, our hotel room looked at a blank wall in a light well, could barely fit a double bed, and there were other people's personal effects lying around.  (We typically do not travel five star, to say the least, but this was too low budget).  It was late, we were bummed.  Before we could complain the host came up and said he gave us the wrong key.  We switched to a vacant room, but he requested we leave our key with him when out for the day.  Our arrival experience was not a confidence builder to leave access to our room.  That night we booked another hotel in St Germaine.

Having seen most of Paris' sites multiple times, we chose to spend each day walking a different arrondissement, and take a couple of excursions out of the city. Our first was to Chartres Cathedral about an hour away.  I've always admired Chartres from my studies.  One reason previously mentioned, it elegantly embraced the beginning and end of the gothic style in its steeples, three hundred years apart.

Chartres Village, with Cathedral on hill in mist.

However, seeing its interiors and architecture up-close it is even more impressive. The origins of Chartres are lost in the mists of time.  There are first century Roman ruins buried under the plaza in front of the Cathedral and the existing crypt goes back to the fifth century. There were several Romanesque churches built on the site following many fires.  

Chartres Cathedral, under plaza are Roman ruins.  
Below rose window in center and left is the remaining Romanesque facade.  

After a fire in the ninth century an appeal went to all the kings of Europe for funds to build a new Cathedral. Charles the Bald, king of Norway and Denmark, donated Sancta Camisa (Holy Tunic) to help raise funds.  This religious relic from Palestine via Constantinople was claimed to be the tunic Virgin Mary wore at the birth of Jesus and touched by him (baby spit-up is more likely).  Sancta Camisa gained additional influence raising money after a fire in the twelfth century destroyed most of the ninth century Cathedral, but found the relic only lightly singed.  You can still see it today. Religious relics were a powerful fund raisers in the middle ages as people would come from far and wide for their miracle properties. Robin and I have seen saint's finger bones, a whole forearm, pieces of the cross, even the iron spear tip that pierced Jesus' side while on the cross. Miraculously, these were found, and provenance confirmed, centuries after the death of a minor Jewish cult figure. Most are beautifully enclosed in jeweled silver or gold reliquary. It is said that there are so many fragments of wood from Jesus' "Vera Cruz" in churches throughout Christendom you could build Noah's arc. 

Reliquary for Sancta Camisa

After the fire in the twelfth century the current cathedral was built in only thirty years. There are still remnants of the earlier Romanesque front facade from before that fire, but the nave, side aisles, transept, apse, and roof are early Gothic.  It remains largely intact since.  The new design incorporated many early gothic features found in subsequent Cathedrals: rectangular quadripartite vaults, flying buttresses to open up the walls, tall lancet windows to let in light as never before, and stained glass windows.  Chartres has the most complete extant medieval stained glass windows, over 80% original, telling religious parables, narratives, and moral lessons to the illiterate population in comic-book fashion.  Over 800 years later they have not faded, and bathe the interior with suffused light and color.  The north spire rebuilt in the sixteenth century was in the later flamboyant gothic style.

Quadripartite vaulting to transfer roof load to exterior buttresses.
(Notre Dame in Paris uses square vaults, and here they are rectangular)

Stained glass of the "Blue Mary" surrounded by cartoon panels,
read from bottom left to top of her earthly to heavenly life story.

Our second excursion was Fontainebleau.  Like Cathedrals, most palaces, eg. Versailles, the Louvre and Fontainebleau, were remodeled and added onto over the centuries by different monarchs.  Fontainebleau was the favorite of Napoleon and he chose it as his seat of government, crowning as emperor, and abdication only fourteen years later in 1815.  It has vast landscaped gardens and natural forests which, being winter, we did not explore.  We took an audio tour of the apartments.  They almost rival Versailles.  

Map of Fountainebleu and gardens

One wing of palace.  Main horseshoe grand stair is out of frame
 to right under cover for reconstruction.

Napoleon's throne

The Great Library

Napoleon as self-styled Caesar to rule the world

Walking the arrondissements, over six miles a day, we fell in love with the city again.  Changed - yes; different populations - yes; other cultures - yes, but it's not all as our first night.  We still believe it is the most beautiful city on earth.  Most of the city's architecture are background buildings, consistent eight stories in white or buff stone or plaster, with mansard roofs.  These are laid out on a coherent urban plan designed by Haussmann in the mid-nineteenth century with wonderful diagonal boulevards intersecting at nodes occupied by notable landmarks.

Haussmann's Paris Plan.  
Boulevards radiating out from Arch de Triumph 

These background buildings provides a canvas for their monuments: Louvre, Tour Eiffel, Hotel de Invalides, Place de la Concord, Bastille, Sacre Coeur, and so many more.  There are also contemporary buildings by architects who tried too hard to be an "artiste".  At Paris' heart is Notre Dame on Isle Cite, the Seine river, and the left bank.  (Previous blog discussed its fire and restoration).

Cartoon's depicting Notre Dame's reconstruction

Sacre Coure in Montmartre 

Pont Alexander III and Hotel Invalides

The Good.  I.M.Pei's Louvre pyramid covered entry

The Bad.  Pompidou Museum.  
(Actually I like it as an inside out object, just not in the historic center

The Ugly.  Les Halles Canopy over shopping center and Metro Station
(A good feature is they suppressed the shopping center below grade to reduce its height)

The Sublime Tour Eiffel.  On our glorious spring-like last day.  

With a week immersed in its neighborhoods we rediscovered many Parisian boulangeris, cafes, and bistros which we delightfully frequented for petit dejeuner, lunch, and dinner.  

Cafe culture

Mars de la Fountaine.  Our favorite bistro in 7th arrondissement.
We discovered it in 2015 when our Airbnb was above it.  
Turns out Barack and Michele dined here.  Close to Tour Eiffel

The wines and food available at regular stores, at reasonable prices, is truly astounding.  In Seattle you need to go to specialty stores to find a meager selection and then pay two to three times the cost.  

Wide assortment of Formage

Boulangerie for petit dejeuner, and baguette with formage

Fruits et Legumes on our new favorite foodie street.  
Rue de Martres in addition to Rue de Cler.

Alas, it was time to take the EuroStar back to the City of London, our second tale.