In this long Easter weekend we have had the pleasure of meeting Tom from smallcarBIGCITY, who took us around London in Poppy, a gorgeous 1998 red Mini Cooper. While driving through the likes of Waterloo, Covent Garden, Mayfair and Bank, we learned a lot of interesting stories about London and its history, but not just the usual routine stuff you hear in tour buses, actual things that you would never imagine!
Our driver Tom picked us up right next to a very crowded Borough Market, where a lot of puzzled tourists were taking pictures of the small Cooper. He told us to get used to it as this car attracts a lot of attention and to smile or make funny faces when the camera was pointed at us! We asked him why they used Mini Coopers, and the answer was very simple: with a small car like this you can drive where the cars and the buses can’t. Plus, you can park it almost everywhere. So, off we go then!
Waterloo
Our first stop was Banksy Tunnel, where all the taxis used to stop waiting to pic up the passengers arriving from France in the Eurostar. Today, this is the only place where anyone can legally do graffiti, so you will find a number of street artists trying to create their masterpiece. Also, as no one owns the copyright for this tunnel, you will find photographers capturing their models for their magazines. If the smell of paint doesn’t put you off, or if you actually enjoy it (not judging), this is a real hidden gem.
Covent Garden
Our next stop was Covent Garden. While driving through very narrow streets, Tom told us a lot of amusing stories. We learned that the lovely red post boxes that we see all around London all have the King or Queen’s name on them from when they were built. Also, the royal mail is property of the Queen until delivered. That means that if you send drugs by mail and they are intercepted before they are delivered, you could get the Queen arrested! So yeah, don’t send drugs via mail.
Speaking of people getting arrested, we visited the first Metropolitan Police Station built in London, this in Bow Street. At the time, police men weren’t allowed to investigate crime, so they ended up chasing after criminals in the middle of the street!
Mayfair
Pictures taken, lets move on to Mayfair! After driving through New and Old Bond Street, we stopped in front of the Burlington Arcade, built by Lord Cavendish himself for his wife back in 1819. This luxury shopping gallery has the smallest police force in the world and it has three very important rules: don’t whistle, don’t open your umbrella and don’t run. Are you asking yourself why? Thieves use to whistle at each other in order to indicate their poor victim, they covered the security cameras with their umbrella and they ran away with the stolen goods. So, if by any chance you feel the urge of running from one side to the other of the Arcade, please think twice!
The City of London
As we were tired of crazy tourists trying to take pictures of our car, we decided it was time to visit the City of London, practically deserted on weekends. We learned that not only does this part of the City have a different Police force, but the Queen actually needs a written authorisation to enter. Imagine if this authorisation had gotten lost in the mail for Charles and Diana’s wedding in St Paul’s Cathedral in 1981, that would have been a real drama!
After two hours, our lovely tour ended and Tom brought us back to where it all started, Borough Market, where amazed tourists started taking tons of pictures of Poppy, the red Mini Cooper.
Our view
Compared to other tours that people can do in London, the smallcarBIGCITY tour gives you the opportunity of visiting the best parts of London in a small amount of time. They pic you up anywhere you want in Central London and they create an itinerary based on what you want to see. What is amazing about this tour is that even if you are a true Londoner, you end up learning so many interesting stories about the city that you would not even imagine. So if you want to know which illustrious intellectual spent a night in the Bow Street Police Station, or where the first ever music video was filmed, or even better who bought all the bricks from the old London Bridge and what they did with them (you wouldn’t believe it!), this is the right tour for you!
