Same old London

For any Australian visiting London there is a familiarity about this vast metropolis that is both welcoming and challenging.  The splendours of London are still there to delight in---the British Library, the British Museum, the Tate, the National Gallery, the Portrait Gallery, the parks, the palaces, the traditions, the art, music, films, drama and the buzz.  But there is also the size, complexity and the density of population to challenge you every day.  The capacity of public transport to move a billion people across an underground system (begun in 1863 and still far from modern), or to bus masses of travellers through a maze of old, narrow streets and traffic-clogged roads or other sagging infra-structure is amazing, but not always reliable. So it is a brave antipodean grandparent, who sets off alone from one side of London to the other to visit family.


This undertaking  involves first a bus journey, then an underground train, a change to another underground train, a final bus trip and a walk, so you can be sure that there will  be something to challenge you in this endeavour.  It might be that you negotiate the first stages fairly easily and then arrive in the tourist-packed area of London to catch the bus that leaves from Westminster Bridge, only to find that the bus-stop has been

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 temporarily moved and there doesn't appear to be a replacement stop in sight.  This will probably entail walking across Westminster Bridge (and further) to try to catch the bus at the next stop