Suzy Says

Love/hate for Friday, June 21, 2002
London

I love London. I have loved it as long as I can remember. My father was English, and because of this, we often went to England to visit his parents. Later, my father retired back to his native land, and I would visit him there at least once a year. So, one way and another, I have been going there all my life, and I have a deep and abiding love for England in general and London in particular.

I now realize that I was very lucky to have a home base in Wimbledon, which is technically London, though located at the very end of the District Line on the Underground. It seems to me that London, in the guise of Greater London, has been encroaching ever outwards, and sometimes I wonder if it will eventually take over the entire country. Anyway, when I get to London, I head for Wimbledon, where My Room is always waiting for me and I slip into my London life without a second thought.

Dr. Samuel Johnson, he of so many bons mots, famously and truly observed that ?he who is tired of London is tired of life itself?, and I couldn?t agree more. Though I have been there dozens of times, possibly even scores of times, there are still things I haven?t seen that I?d like to, and others that are so wonderful that visiting them once a year is not enough. I used to think of my trips to London rather like the children?s story about Frederick the Mouse. Frederick spent the summers storing up enough colors and flowers and sunlight to get him through the long, dark winters, and on my trips to London, I would try to absorb enough paintings, theater, great houses, history, and time with my father to get me through the rest of the year.

London is a treasure house of these things, and it is exciting to be in such an ancient and beautiful place. In the middle of London, near St. Paul?s Cathedral, there are remains of Roman walls, and in the nearby Museum of the City of London, you can marvel at the Roman houses that were some of the city?s first. The city has been inhabited for many centuries, and as someone who lives in such a new country, I love being somewhere that life has gone on for centuries. And as someone who is half English, I also feel the connection to my roots. Generations of my father?s family were Londoners, and I like walking the streets where they lived and worked.

You can also walk the streets that have known some of the greatest authors, painters, actors, and philosophers the world has ever known. You can drink a pint in the same pub as Charles Dickens or Dr. Johnson himself. You can lunch where Winston Churchill did (at the Savoy Grill), and see a play in theaters once graced by Sarah Bernhardt and E Terry. You can see the great Hall of Westminster, which recently sheltered the Queen Mother?s coffin at her Lying in State, but also where King Charles I and the great William Wallace were both tried for their lives. You can visit the Tower of London, built in 1066. 1066! You can even visit many of the Queen?s royal residences, including Windsor Castle and Buckingham Palace, but only if she herself is not in residence.

I promise you, you will never see all of London?s wonders, but it?s worth a try. And that’s not even mentioning the wonderful collections of the British Museum, the National Gallery, the Tate Gallery, and the Tate Modern, or the places easily reachable from a London base, such as Hampton Court, Stonehenge, Salisbury Cathedral….

And one final note: the myth of bad British food is just that. Some of the best and most memorable meals I have ever had were in the UK, notably the Walnut Tree in Wales (the great cookbook author Elizabeth David?s personal favorite); the River Caf&eacute, and the Tate Restaurant, with its gorgeous mural by Rex Whistler.

For those who don?t know where to start, I would suggest the Eyewitness Guide to London, which lives up to its promise of ?showing you what other guides only tell you? and City Secrets: London, which even taught me a thing or two about one of my favorite cities in the world.

So partly because of its childhood associations, partly because of these visits to my father, which were, as he said in his last letter to me, the high point of the year, and partly because of this ancient city itself and all its wonders, I will always love London.