London Calling: Interview with a Blue Badge Guide
Blue Badge Guide Rowan Freeland catches us up on what’s new and exciting this year as we look forward to returning to one of our favorite cities: London!
London will always be a firm favorite here at Poe Travel. From its diverse food scene to its bustling markets to its old buildings steeped in history to its world-class museums to some of our most loved hotels (The Goring, hello!), The Big Smoke keeps us coming back time and time again.
To catch up after a quiet couple of years, we sat down with Rowan Freeland, a qualified Blue Badge Guide. He filled us in on how London has transformed itself in the last two years, and he also shared lots of new and exciting tidbits to look forward to this year—aside from Her Majesty the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee, that is!
Rowan has lived in London for over 40 years. As is the case for many of the city’s accomplished Blue Badge Guides (a coveted title that takes two years of rigorous study to obtain), guiding is a second career for Rowan. After studying History at Oxford, Rowan spent many years working at a busy law firm in the City before he decided to turn his love for London and its history, art, and architecture into his full-time gig.
Here’s what Rowan had to say...
POE TRAVEL: We bet you’re just as excited as we are that visitors will be returning to the UK in earnest this year. What are you most looking forward to about tourism in London this year?
Rowan Freeland, Blue Badge Guide (photo courtesy of Rowan Freeland)
ROWAN FREELAND: Walking around London during lockdown was an extraordinary experience, with deserted streets and dead plants in many central London office window boxes. But we are now seeing people coming back into the center, office workers and visitors alike, and the “buzz” is coming back. It is so wonderful to be back in a city that is vibrant and exciting once more!
PT: What’s your favorite experience for families with children or teenagers traveling to London?
RF: It may sound a bit corny, but the number one attraction in my book for children or teenagers is the Changing of the Guard—walking alongside the Band of the Old Guard as it marches from St James’s Palace to Buckingham Palace, playing stirring music that just makes you walk in step, is an experience they will never forget. We then see the New Guard marching out of their barracks with their band before walking up through St James’s Park to visit the horses on guard at Horseguards. For the youngsters, a visit to the Household Cavalry Museum to see the stables for the horses who go on guard and to try on the soldiers’ uniforms is a dream end to the experience!
For teenagers, I like getting up high to find the Instagrammable views, which are such an important part of a modern tour. My current favorite is the roof garden at 120 Fenchurch Street, which is right in among the skyscrapers—so close you feel you can touch them...though there is a 15-story canyon in the way!
PT: And what about for couples?
RF: The wonderful thing about guiding couples is that I can find out from chatting as we walk along, or from learning in advance of their arrival, what sort of things they like. I can then modify what I show them and how I present them to really focus the tour on them. This is why I love taking couples to places like the National Gallery or the British Museum, where there is lots of scope to vary the tour as we go to fit their interests.
One couple, for whom I was booked to do a general London highlights tour with a driver, asked when I met them to learn more about London’s neighborhoods. I made up a tour for them on the spot, and we had a hugely enjoyable time driving in a crescent around the west and north of the West End, from King’s Road, Chelsea, through Kensington, Notting Hill, and Maida Vale to Primrose Hill. We didn’t see a single “tourist” sight, and they loved it!
PT: What’s the feeling in London at the moment? Is everything back to normal? What can visitors expect?
Rowan showing a group the wonders of the British Museum (photo courtesy of Michiel Ottevanger)
RF: Daily life feels back to normal for the most part. Of course, no one wants the dreaded second line in our lateral flow test. For most of us, the disease is mild, but it is still slightly disruptive. But it’s been lovely to see London opening up once again.
In the business districts of the City (London City, the business center of the capital) and the West End, most office workers are back, and with them, the buzz, although it is noticeably quieter on Fridays as “WFH” (working from home) is still with us. We do see the occasional closed shops and cafes, those businesses who were unable to last the course of the pandemic, but when I was in the City last week, there were lunchtime queues outside many of the popular sandwich bars and eateries. It was wonderful to see that bit of normalcy again!
In the tourist sites, timed entry arrangements—which were introduced during COVID to control numbers—are mostly still in place, which reduces queueing in the main sites. But you’ll still need to get there well before 10am if you want to avoid a long wait to get into the Crown Jewels in the Tower, or else arrange one of their fabulous out-of-hours experiences.
PT: What’s new and exciting in London that guests may not have seen in a pre-pandemic world?
RF: COVID has transformed London into a city of outdoor eating. When lockdown was first lifted, restaurants were only allowed to serve customers outside. In many streets, the restaurants have retained their outdoor seating areas even as restrictions lifted, and al fresco dining looks as if it is with us to stay. In the colder months, restaurants even utilize patio-heaters! This is making a real contribution to the buzz of this wonderful city.
New attractions have been limited as most have hunkered down to wait out the lack of visitors. At Cutty Sark in Greenwich, visitors with a head for heights can now climb the rigging to the first level and even higher. That is not for me! I like my feet to stay on the ground! More conventionally, the Courtauld Gallery reopened last autumn after a three-year refurbishment. Compared to its former rather cramped quarters, its new spacious galleries are a delightful place to enjoy some of the world’s major masterpieces.
PT: Tell us what’s best about London in each season.
Photo courtesy of Josh Wilburne on Unsplash
RF: Springtime is when the sunshine fills us with a surge of excitement. I love driving tours across London to spot spring bulbs: crocuses, daffodils, and tulips, huge drifts in Kew Gardens and the Royal Parks, and smaller patches in London’s garden squares and even in front gardens. As spring develops, the residential streets in Chelsea and Notting Hill, the garden squares in the West End, and the pocket parks in the City are full of blossoms and, later, magnolias. Meanwhile in Richmond Park, for those willing to face a slightly muddy walk, the Isabella Plantation is spectacular as the camellias, rhododendrons, and azaleas take their turns to flower.
Summer is all about the outdoors, from the Open Air Theatre in Regent’s Park to the huge concerts in Hyde Park—this summer is Elton John, the Rolling Stones, Adele, and many more. Away from the concerts, you can join the groups of Londoners sitting with friends for evening picnics in Regent’s Park or Primrose Hill. The weather is good, and it’s the time of year for walking tours. Around the City (I love showing people the City Churches), Westminster or further afield—Chelsea, Bermondsey, and Bloomsbury.
In autumn (we learn to say “fall” for American guests!), the evenings draw in and the weather gets chillier, so we want to be indoors again—and the major museums and galleries know it! There are some fantastic blockbuster exhibitions to look forward to: Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, one of the most exciting young figurative painters working in Britain today, at Tate Britain in November; a career-spanning Cezanne exhibition at Tate Modern in October; and Winslow Homer and Lucien Freud at the National Gallery in September and October. Rather quirkier will be “Hallyu! The Korean Wave” at the V&A; and at the British Museum, an exhibition on the decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphs will play to one of my particular interests!
Winter is the quiet season for tourists and tour guides, and the so-called “honeypots” (main attractions) are at their quietest. This is why I love to visit the Tower of London, Westminster Abbey, the British Museum, and Borough Market (the foodie Mecca and home to Bridget Jones) during the winter months. It gives visitors a chance to experience these fantastic sites without the long queues and busy crowds.
As Rowan has illustrated, there isn’t a bad time of year to visit London. Tell us when you’re ready to hop across the pond, and we will design a customized itinerary just for you, full of fantastic experiences with Rowan or some of his fabulous Blue Badge colleagues. We can also arrange for plenty of experiences outside of the city, should you wish to visit seaside towns, quaint villages, or historic sites.
Contact us to Go Away to London (or anywhere else in the world).