I've seen things you people wouldn't believe: New Zeeland Stories, Part 2

In my last post from Zeeland province, I took a look at the new bypass around the village of Vogelwaarde. In this post, I will have a look at some interesting things on a trip across the border to Hulst and then on to Goes.

Zeeland is a very rural part of the Netherlands and consists of various peninsulas and islands. The southern part shares a border with Flanders (the Flemish speaking north of Belgium) and is known as "Zeelandic Flanders". As well as Vogelwaarde, my visit took in a range of places as we cycled back across the border from Antwerp:

• Hulst - an historic city in the south of the province with a strong local connection to Flanders.
• Terneuzen - a city which is also in the south (north of Hulst) which has been a port for centuries, but has much more modern development than Hulst.
• Breskens and Vlissingen which are connected by a foot and cycle ferry that we used, but sadly, with no time to linger.
• Goes - A city in the heart of Zeeland which was on my list to visit because of a roundabout (a good a way as any to decide where to go, right?)

My usual health-warning applies in that I was visiting places as a tourist, even though some of what I was saw was with engineering eyes!

Historic Hulst

I visited Hulst in 2017 with my youngest who at the time I transported in a child seat on the back of a campsite bike. We only had lunch there and so when planning Spring 2026's trip, I was eager to have an overnight stay and have another look around.

The crossing from Belgium into the Netherlands was on a traffic-free route between De Klinge (BE) and Clinge (NL), complete with a customs barrier (above, looking into the Netherlands). Sadly for the Dutch, the Belgian section of this path was far superior and so I think the Netherlands needs to up its game on providing for cycling.

The path itself is along a former railway line and is a nice way to cross the border. We could have stayed on the path to reach Hulst, but instead joined some very quiet rural roads which took us into the south-east of Hulst where we turned west along Van der Maelstedeweg to reach our hotel - Hotel Hulst. 

Just opposite the hotel was the new "in ulst/ i hulst" sign (above) which is part of the city's branding as a tourist centre where "ulst" is apparently the city's name in the local Flemish dialect.

I was actually more interested in the new looking junction that the sign sits by (above). This is the T-junction of Van der Maelstedeweg/ Absdaalseweg with Stationsweg (the minor arm). When I visited in 2017, Van der Maelstedeweg and Stationsweg formed the main road for motors which essentially fired them at the old city.

The redevelopment of the junction now means that general traffic avoids the centre and is directed towards local car parks and a regional road, leaving Stationsweg nice and quiet.

From a walking, wheeling and cycling perspective, these modes run in parallel with driving and so this means the crossing of the entrance to Stationweg is with a parallel crossing (above). 

However, crossing the two arms of the main road keeps priority with drivers in a way I don't think you'd get in other places such as Utrecht. Pedestrians used to have zebra crossings on all three arms, so a reduction in service there. There was a nice little cycling link from Absdaalseweg which took us to the hotel's yard where they had secure cycle parking.

The old part of Hulst is surrounded by a city wall and moat which is shaped rather like a holly leaf - Hulst can be translated as "holly" in English and the plant is depicted on the city's coat of arms. There's a walking route around the top of the wall which we took advantage of (below).

During the day, the city is busy and a place for locals and tourists alike. We were there a little early for the main season staring at Easter and by the evening we had the historic streets to ourselves (below) and they were typically old Dutch and while accessible by car, the network layout discourages through traffic.

We visited the Prince of Wales (below) for a drink where we struck up conversation with the owner. In-between some of his taller stories, we asked about transport in the area. He reported that despite the big push for tourism, there was often a problem finding staff; and many people relied on their cars because public transport wasn't the best, especially as there was no railway. It seems these problems are international.

The road to Breskens

After Hulst, we were heading to Goes on the peninsular to the north with the plan to cycle from Hulst to the ferry port at Breskens, with a slight diversion to look at the Vogelwaarde bypass and via Terneuzen for lunch. This was going to be a 50km day and it turned into one the hardest legs I have cycled in the Netherlands!

As soon as we left Hulst, we turned into a headwind which stayed in our faces until we reached Breskens - it was blowing at around 35km/h all day! By the time we got to Terneuzen, we were in no mood to mooch around taking photos and so we found a supermarket and stuffed our faces and rehydrated.

The port of Terneuzen is on the western side and there are huge lock gates between the Scheldt and the Gent-Terneuzen Canal which is an important route for cargo heading to Ghent. We arrived at the first lock which was in use and because the region is so flat, the main road crosses the locks on lifting bridges which are pretty astonishing to see on the open position (see above and below).

There are three locks and from a roads perspective, there are two crossings of each lock so when one bridge is up, the other is down so one can always get through the area. The problem for cycling is the worry that as soon as you head to the "down" bridge, this swaps round and you have to come back on yourself. Luckily, we didn't get caught out.

We crossed the entrance to the Westerscheldetunnel which is a route for motor traffic which was opened in 2003 and which saw the end of the ferry between Kruiningen and Perkpolder to the west. You can actually take bicycles on a local bus service through the tunnel, but it's limited to two per bus and you are only taken between the bus station in Terneuzen and the toll area on the north side which means a decent onward cycle to the nearest towns.

Once over the locks, the route to Breskens skirts an industrial and port area (above). Of course, there is a smooth and separate cycle track which provides links to the commercial and industrial premises as well as the open spaces. 

It's one of those places where building cycle tracks wouldn't stand up to any UK-style business case scrutiny, but where the Dutch Sustainable Safety approach demands separation from traffic (and lots of HGVs in this case), so why wouldn't cycle tracks be built?

One of the most curious parts of this leg was the road between Savoyaardsweg and Havenstraat (above). It's a pretty typical Dutch rural road with edge markings (not cycle lanes) and a 60km/h speed limit. It also has some pretty wide junctions at each end. Ordinarily, this type of road can feel a little sketchy with that speed limit, even though they are not always too busy. This one was devoid of motors because it is closed at each end with barriers and I think technically private.

Looking at the local road network, having this road open to motors would create a rat-run, including with HGVs, and so the area is filtered which requires general traffic to route to the parallel national road N61 to the south. There is an off-road path parallel to this road too, but Google Maps at least will route you along this closed road which I can only assume is maintained to be an emergency route or for local resilience.

We we skirted the edge of Hoofdplaat, a village which has been around for quite a long time (above) and which marked the approach to Breskens.

The Breskens to Vlissingen ferry

As I mentioned above, this was a long day and so we weren't interested in looking around and made straight for the ferry terminal at Breskens where we were looking forward to a sit down.

The ferry service is at least hourly off-season and twice hourly for much of the day in peak season; it can also get busy in the summer and the advice is to pre-book. We were still off-season so it was a ride-up and go affair. You can literally ride into the terminal and park your cycles indoors which we did (see above) while purchasing tickets from the helpful staff and having a snack.

As it turned out, we didn't have to wait long as the ferry soon arrived and we were invited to board (above).

Cycle passengers weren't exactly high in numbers (there were more foot passengers), but we parked our bikes (above) and headed to the passenger cabin (below) which was comfortable enough for the 25 minute or so sailing over to Vlissingen.

A nose around Goes

We had thought about cycling from Vlissingen to Middleburg before catching the train on to Goes, but we were too tired and opted to catch the train direct which was easy as the ferry terminal and station are next to each other.

Taking cycles on trains in the Netherlands is permitted on most off-peak services, but there is a charge per cycle which generally means most people don't take a cycle, and there's is usually enough of the limited spaces available. You're meant to take panniers and other bags off your cycle and after many trips and many trains taking our bikes on them, we had our first train manager who asked us to take ours off. The photo above is on a Sprinter train from a couple of years ago.

Goes is another historic city with a short cycle to the city centre from the station. We were staying to the north which was an easy 2km or so cycle along the main road to the west which was on a disappointing painted cycle lane which had the risk of right hook at a main car park entrance. This was a reminder that the roads and streets of the Netherlands remains an intergenerational work in progress.

Our hotel was just north of Ringbaan West, a busy urban connector road providing access to several neighbourhoods to the north of the city. Only a few years ago, we would have crossed at road level, albeit within a protected junction, but there is now an easy to use underpass (see above) which came with the construction of a new neighbourhood. In this area, the motoring and cycling networks had become unravelled from each other.

Part of the new development fronts some canal-side which provides access to apartments and shops via a footway and cycle track with the latter almost being in stealth-mode given the choice to mix the same colour of the footways with a little bit of red (above). It's not a main cycleway, but a little odd.

The old city looks very Dutch with Sint Maartenbrug (above) providing direct access for walking, wheeling and cycling (and mopeds), but not general traffic.

Just the other side of the bridge, the area has been pedestrianised with an exception for cycles, exemption-holders and deliveries in specific time windows. A lack of parked cars certainly enhanced the evening view as we headed back to the hotel after a couple of beers and some dinner (below).

Being dark also gave a chance to check out the underpass at night which was well-lit and see-through which is common in the Netherlands (below).

After Goes, we were going to head back to Rotterdam by train and then on to Hoek van Holland for the night ferry, but before we did, there was just time to cross something off my list.

A roundabout within a roundabout

To the west of the city is the Tiendenplien roundabout which connects the larger city roads to a spur which becomes the A256 motorway which is just 2.5km in length and essentially a connector spur to the A58 motorway which runs east-west along the peninsula.

The traffic roundabout is of the turbo variety (turborotonde) where drivers have to choose a lane well before entry and which drops them at the correct exit. Lane changes in the circulatory area are prevented with kerbs and this means they can process high volumes of traffic and side-impact risks are reduced. You can see in the photo above that there signs telling drivers which lane to take.

Cycling (and walking/ wheeling) should not be crossing the arms of this type of roundabout because crossing more than one traffic lane at once is both subjectively and objectively unsafe, although such layouts do exist in the Netherlands. Here, there are cycle tracks and service roads (with cycle track spurs such as the one above) which provide for cycling under the roundabout. 

In general, the road has been raised above general ground levels and the cycle tracks and footways dropped a little so that it's no effort to access the central area and the views through are good (above).

Finally, there are four routes converging on the centre of the roundabout and the cycle tracks meet at their own little roundabout. You don't really need roundabouts to manage flows of cyclists, but this one did slow people down a touch and provided a good place for a directional sign (above) and which we used to head back to the city centre and then the station for our homeward journey.

Build A Belgian Burger: Flemish Style

Back in the Spring of this year, I visited the Netherlands where I took a look at a village bypass scheme, but this post is from across the border, just outside Antwerp in Belgium.

As we cycled to Hulst in the Netherlands from Antwerp, we happened on an interesting road layout on the N70, about 10km west of the city, in Beveren, East Flanders (below). It wasn't something I had on my list to see and it's only after doing a little research have I realised how clever it all is. It's a "hamburger junction", but one with some fancy relish.

What's a hamburger?

In road engineering terms a "hamburger" is a type of roundabout where there is a road straight through the centre ,and which is kind of the patty with the semicircles above and below formed by the circulatory area looking a bit like the two halves of the bun. It's generic and they are quite varied, and often use traffic signals.

In the UK, hamburger roundabouts are often signalised and are set up to prioritise the main flow of traffic through the middle with other traffic entering and leaving via the circulatory area.

It was a hamburger that we stumbled across at the junction of the N70 Grote Baan and Pareinpark (above).

Mixed uses

This particular location had plenty going on. To the north of the road is a bit of a retail/ industrial park, and to the south, a strip of residential development (and redevelopment) which turns into more residential streets a little further back on each side.

The N70 is the main (non-motorway) Ghent to Antwerp road and as well as providing a secondary connection for motor traffic between the two cities, it also provides a local function. The junction isn't unique in this area, there's another one about 1km to the west towards Antwerp which we didn't even notice as we cycled along.

From a walking, wheeling and cycling perspective, the N70 has quite a variation in provision. Sometimes people are routed to quieter streets parallel to the main road. There are also shared-use paths, and when there's a bit more street frontage, there's sometimes separate space. The photograph above shows a fairly typical example of a shared path - it's not that wide and was only improved to this standard about five years ago when the hamburger was built.

Back to the burger

In the image below, I have turned on the aerial photography which shows the retail/ industrial complex to the north and the residential development to the south.

The road which branches off to the north-west serves the commercial area and perhaps the layout helps that operate; but why not just have a roundabout? The image shows a pale grey road running through the middle and this starts to pull at the purpose.

Back in 2020, the junction was a pretty typical inter-urban/ urban fringe road (above). The left turn lane in the centre was to access the commercial area and you can see there's a painted cycle lane. On the right there's a bus stop in a layby which doesn't exactly help with bus priority.

And here we find the purpose of the hamburger - it's a bus priority measure. The photograph above shows the westbound approach and there's a fair bit going on here.

Just to the left of the image, there's a bus lane to the left of the general traffic lane and this is controlled by a traffic signal. It's hard to make out, but it's actually a tram signal and depicts a horizontal white bar in the upper aspect which means stop. The chequerboard marking shows where the bus lane crosses another road and essentially means "keep clear".

Drivers give way to traffic on the circulatory area due to the triangular "shark's teeth" markings. For general traffic on the other side of the road, there are other signals, including the mast arm - we'll see more of these in a while. You can also see a cycle parking shelter in the middle of the junction.

The geometry is tight and the curves have an adverse camber to slow drivers down. The block paving is for larger vehicles to overrun if required, but that's a little sketchy when you're on the shared use path to the right!

The photograph above is on the same side of the road, but looking east this time. You can just see there is a separate cycle track to the left of the hedge with the footway in a slightly different material. There's the same on the other side and they are actually two-way!

You can also just make out the access road to the commercial area on the left. The traffic signal by the red car on the left is to control traffic entering the circulatory area and the one in the centre is for buses leaving the central road. The right hand signal is for buses entering in the junction and again, is a tram signal.

Getting to the meaty part

The photograph below is the view east from the centre of the hamburger - the meat in the bun. You can see the bus stop with its shelter. The bus road here is concrete to resist braking and acceleration forces, and to the left, the light grey guidance tactile paving ends at a black square which will be where the front door of the bus stops. The black square is a "tactile ground surface indicator" (TGSI) and is made from neoprene, so it has a slight amount of give to provide a tactile response.

It's hard to see, but the mast arm traffic signal to the right of the photograph is showing an amber signal at the bottom (where we would usually expect a green). 

It was actually flashing which means drivers should slow down and be prepared to give way, which will be to buses leaving or entering the centre of the junction which is an exception to usual roundabout rules. In practice, this means the chequered areas are acting like a level crossing for buses which have absolute priority in this context in the same way as a tram would.

The photograph above is from the same location as before, but now looking west. At the opposite bus stop, you can see a high kerb which is compatible with low floor buses to make them almost step-free. 

There's guardrail to help marshal people to the crossing point (which I am standing near) and the shelter is free of advertising so views through it are clear. You can also see the signals on the mast arm to the right with the amber aspect showing (caught mid-flash once again).

Taking a step or two back, the photo shows the crossing that I was standing by in the previous photograph. The crossing is between the two bus stops and a bus driver stopped would see people crossing in front of them. For pedestrians, there are zebra crossings over the two bus roads as well as the general traffic lane in each direction. The tight geometries of the general traffic lanes mean drivers have been slowed before they reach the crossing point.

Cycle traffic is required to give way, which is fairly consistent for a road of this class, and for the bus roads, absolute priority is with buses anyway given the general approach taken from tramway design. When we were there, it was fairly easy to crossing as a pedestrian or a cyclist.

Bun-stoppable

The final image (above) is of the commercial access road (Pareinpark). I had to take this from Google because I was too interested in the main layout I didn't think to snap this!

You can see from the red surfacing across the junction that the cycle track is two way and cycle traffic has priority over traffic. The problem we found here was the the advertising on the verge to the right of the footway. As we approached the junction, drivers couldn't see us as they approached the junction from the side street and so crossing he junction felt a little precarious.

A continuous treatment would have been better from a design priority perspective, but running HGVs over that would destroy it and so a marked (parallel) crossing with a zebra for the pedestrian side would have been better.

(Nearly) well-done

I have had a dig around to see if I could find out more about the scheme that led to the layout that caught my eye, but I couldn't - if you have some insight, please share it as it's good to know the background.

It's worth a cruise up and down the N70 here on street view to see other things going on, but it just shows that bus priority can be retrofitted, even where the corridor isn't that wide.

The thing I like most about this junction is that it is all very logical and intuitive, even if a little rough around the edges for cycling and I think it's a design we could use in the UK, although the signalling would have to be adapted to our standards.

The mapping and associated street view images are all © Google 2026.

Monopoly? Walked It Mate

May is Living Streets' National Walking Month and for the third year in a row, and so a few weeks ago, I decided to undertake another long walk. This time I wanted to visit the Monopoly board locations in Central London.

I have given some thought on how to present this post, whether following the route or grouping the sites, but I went for the route because that's the way the story of the day unfolded. So, let's retrace my 15 miles of walking which started early on Friday 22nd May 2026.

Planning the walk

I spent a bit of time in advance thinking about how I was going to tackle the walk, and until I had mapped it, I wasn't even sure of the distance. Because I wanted to take some photographs as I went, I had to build in time for that as well as posting on social media.

My previous walks had started near home which allowed an 05:00 start, but this year, I had to travel which meant a later start. In the event, I thought it would be around 8 hours or so and that turned out to be a pretty good estimate and I would have been much quicker without stopping for photographs!

Getting to the start

I left home at about the same time as I had in previous years, but with a walk to the station to pick up the first Elizabeth Line service heading west. My plan was to start at Whitechapel Road, but the first train didn't stop there (I should have checked more carefully). 

The first train of the day arrives.

I jumped on anyway with the aim of changing at Stratford for the following train which did stop at Whitechapel, but of course that was cancelled and so I ended up just catching the third train to the Liverpool Street terminus and then the Tube back to Whitechapel.

Best foot forward

I stepped out onto Whitechapel Road at 06:00 and took my first "proof" photograph of the day. A scene which someone commented looked like it was from 28 Days Later.

A zombie-free Whitechapel Road

Despite already having been to Liverpool Street station en route to the start, it was time to stop there properly, but there was a walk to get there. As I headed up Whitechapel Road, I passed the East London Mosque which, like the area, has constantly evolved with its current building opening in 1985. 

The East London Mosque

I then turned off Whitechapel Road and into Banglatown, an area which has attracted and benefitted from centuries of migration. Installed in 1997, the Banglatown Arch on Brick Lane commemorates the importance of the area for the Bangladeshi community - and of course, to London.

The Banglatown Arch

The area has gone through waves of immigration for people trying to find a cheaper area to live and my connection to this comes from my maternal grandmother's Jewish family who moved to Bethnal Green, about a mile to the north-east. Like so many families, they moved from Germany at the start of the 20th Century.

I weaved through the border streets between Tower Hamlets and the City of London to return officially to Liverpool Street Station, the first of four to tick off.

Liverpool Street Station

This station used to be part of my commute until Covid pushed us to work from home. When I returned to the office, it was to the underground Elizabeth Line connection. These days, it is rare for me to venture into the terminus as I am usually heading elsewhere.

30 St. Mary Axe

I then headed south passing 30 St. Mary Axe, more famously known as The Gherkin, where I saw the windows being cleaned from a cradle - a job which isn't being hit by the AI boom in the City.

I soon arrived at my second station - Fenchurch Street. This serves the recently nationalised C2C routes on the north of the Thames Estuary out to Southend-on-Sea and Shoeburyness.

Fenchurch Street station

I was heading to the Thames and to get there, I walked past the Monument to the Great Fire of London (to give it its full name). If you pushed it over in an easterly direction, its 61.2 metres height would point to the spot on Pudding Lane where the Great Fire started.

The Monument

From the Monument, I turned onto London Bridge and saw my board token - a battleship, or HMS Belfast in this case. Which is not a battleship but it is a museum. Close enough for my Monopoly walk!

HMS Belfast

South of the River

There's very little Monopoly action to the south of the Thames, but there is a jail you can visit - The Clink, or rather the museum which is close to the site of the original gaol. From the Monopoly point of view, I was just visiting and I was now in the London Borough of Southwark.

The Klink

From the cool backstreets of Bankside I was heading further south, but at least I got to walk through Borough Market, one of my favourite London places, even if it gets too busy for my liking later in the day. The last time I stopped for lunch here, I had some very tasty Iraqi dishes. This time, I walked through at about 7.30am and so a little early for its usual 10am Friday start.

Borough Market

I headed south along Borough High Street and then onwards, further south to my second property square - The Old Kent Road.

The Bricklayer's Arms flyover

I only went a couple of hundred metres into The Old Kent Road with its northern end dominated by the Bricklayer's Arms flyover which is as awful as you would expect it to be.

The junction itself is designed for the movement of motor vehicles, although if you enjoy an adrenaline rush, Transport for London has very kindly painted cycle lanes around it. Mind you, as I walked round, there were a few brave souls as well as a Waymo "self driving" taxi under test.

A 1970s throwback

I had a quick look at collision data for the junction, and something like 35% of the people hurt getting around it are cyclists, so I think I am justified in calling it a meat grinder which has no place in 2026.

I headed back north on Great Dover Street, partly as not to have to retrace my steps and partly because my nest destination was further west of The Clink. Things were warming up and I needed to tick of an electricity company off the list. This came in the form of the Tate Modern on Bankside.

The Tate Modern, from the Millennium bridge

For those that don't know, the building used to be known as the Bankside B Power Station. I am no architectural expert, but it's definitely a building I like with its Art Deco form (which is perhaps 15 years after the main movement). It to me looks like what people in the 1940s thought the future would look like.

Anyway, there was no time to take it all in as I had to push on back across the Thames which I did via the London Millennium Footbridge, returning to the City of London and my next Monopoly destination.

A different view of the Millennium Bridge

Back to The City

Back on the north side of the Thames, I stopped at one of London's newest public open spaces - the Bazalgette Embankment named after Sir Joseph Bazalgette, my civil engineering hero.

The Bazalgette Embankment

The embankment sits over the Thames Tideway sewer which provides service access to the sewer itself as well as new gardens which provided me with a few minutes to pause in, shaded from the sun, before I headed across another border and into the City of Westminster where I would be collecting the bulk of the Monopoly property squares.

Before I left the City for Westminster, I headed north to Fleet Street, named after the River Fleet which flows under it at its eastern end where it is essentially a sewer. 

As I walked up Temple Avenue on my way to Fleet Street, I paused for a minute to have a look at a parklet which provides much needed seating, although I had to crack on.

A parklet - a better type of parking

I turned left onto Fleet Street itself. It's a very old street and one brimming with history, but perhaps in more recent times, it was famous as the centre of London's newspaper publishing industry. The church on the right in the photograph below is St. Dunstan in the West and of course it also has a long history. The current church is from the 19th Century with the original being demolished to widen the street - a bit of a theme was emerging. 

Fleet Street

The kiosk in the middle of the road is part of the 1990s vintage "Ring of Steel" which was a security plan developed in response to the IRA's bombing campaign. It essentially created an arrangement whereby the number of motor traffic routes entering the city were reduced and monitored which meant lots of filtering and traffic management which these days has actually helped make the Square Mile far more pleasant to walk around.

A Westminster wander

I continued west along Fleet Street with the street name soon changing to The Strand (or technically "Strand") and the City of Westminster where I would be spending a fair bit of time. The name comes from from the Old English "strond", meaning beach or edge of river. 

St. Mary le Strand

In December 2022, a project was completed to pedestrianise a section of the street which included making the parallel Aldwych two-way for traffic. As you can see in the photograph above, it is now a traffic-free plaza and a great setting for St. Mary le Strand and King's College.

I then zig-zagged north to Bow Street which took me into Covent Garden. The street has had plenty of famous residents including noted killjoy (perhaps), Oliver Cromwell. It was also home to the Bow Street Runners, perhaps the UK's first organised police force. The photograph above is of the back of the Royal Ballet & Opera.

Breakfast was calling and so my next board square at Leicester Square was a perfect place to grab some food from a well-known fast food chain. Quite usefully, they had a loo which I could use and as someone well used to long walks and cycle rides around my city, I am here to decry the lack of public loos. 

Leicester Square gardens

That wasn't the only example of flowing water (!) the gardens in the middle of Leicester Square were already popular with people sitting watching the fountain in the cool of the shade provided by the huge London Planes. It is a place that has been popular in ebbs and flows. I remember that 20-odd years ago it was pretty grotty, but the latest incarnation really is notable and a good public square is something Westminster is good at.

Nelson on his column

The temperature was rising and it was noticeable as I reached Trafalgar Square which probably needs no introduction (but here's one anyway). As an open square, there is no shade at all and so I wasn't going to hang around as I crossed it to pick up my next board square.

The seat of government

Northumberland Avenue is a traffic sewer and I have nothing better to say about it. It's part of a district between Trafalgar Square and the River Thames where quite a lot of government buildings can be found. Unlike the Great Stink that Bazalgette only got to deal with when it affected MPs in Parliament, it's apparently not awful enough yet to deal with the traffic.

Northumberland Avenue - you can keep it

I skirted the south of Trafalgar Square to quickly reach my next location of Whitehall which was fairly calm. The street really is a hotbed of government action and it's also an important ceremonial street.

The Cenotaph

The photograph above is of The Cenotaph, which is the national memorial to the war dead. The word "cenotaph" is derived from Greek and means "empty tomb" which reflects the fact that in many wars, the dead are buried near where they fell. As I took the photo, I did wonder if the occupants of the little street between the trees remember what this memorial represents.

One of the challenges of planning my walk was whether to include locations that weren't named on the Monopoly board. Now I didn't bother with "chance" or "community chest", but I did want to find something to represent me passing "go". Bus stop "GO" would have been fun, but it was way out of my way, but at the junction of Parliament Street and Bridge Street there was something way geekier waiting for me.

12 Bridge Street

The plaque on the wall of 12 Bridge Street commemorates railwayman, John Peake Knight who is credited with the invention of the traffic signal. Or rather, he borrowed the idea from railway signals and applied it to the street. Unfortunately his 1868 installation to regulate horse drawn traffic exploded a year later when a gas leak caused a light to explode and it wasn't until 1929 that we tried again with electricity. 

Pall Mall

I retraced my steps back up Whitehall, passing HRMC, but I didn't pay any tax. I was heading north to Pall Mall which was another traffic sewer - yes there is a theme here in Westminster, a borough where 2/3 of households don't have access to a car and in this general area, that rises to 3/4.

I wandered north once more along Haymarket (part of the A4) and was nearly taken out by a motorcyclist who was turning right as I was already crossing Charles II Street. I will lay the blame for some of this behaviour with the council that maintains the area for moving motor traffic.

It's like Piccadilly Circus here

A the top of Haymarket, I turned left onto Coventry Street which is another part of the A4 which is in a bit of a gyratory here and of course, it's a traffic sewer. 

The two notable things here is the adverts on the buildings of Piccadilly Circus which these days were selling something to do with crypto currency, and the statue of Eros which is actually Anteros, Eros being the sexier of the two brothers. Crossing the junction took me into Piccadilly and another square ticked off (Piccadilly is to the left of the left-most block in the photograph above.

The very short Vine Street

Just a little way along Piccadilly is Swallow Street and off there is Vine Street, the shortest on the Monopoly board. For some reason, there was a terrible phone/ GPS reception in the area and it took me a few minutes to find Vine Street because it was tucked behind a development hoarding.

Zig-zagging around Soho and Mayfair

My route was becoming a little more complex because of the need to pick up Park Lane and so there was some zig-zagging to be done.

Stonewashing a junction

My next square was Bond Street, but it doesn't technically exist. In fact the street is split into Old Bond Street and New Bond Street which meet at the junction with Burlington Gardens (above, with zig-zags). It's a place of fancy shops and flash cars which didn't entice me to linger.

Get out of my city!

I had a bit of walk west now and so I cut through the back streets and happened across my second Waymo of the day (the first can be just seen on the Bricklayer's Arms photograph). At the time of writing these autonomous vehicles (so called robo-taxis) are under test with a driver, pending them going around on their own later this year. 

For anyone coming across this post from a search of the right key words, my opinion of this technology is extremely low because it will add to congestion, but more importantly, these vehicles are not accessible to all and never can be because taxi drivers do more than drive. Get out of my city!

Pedestrians: good luck crossing

The other notable thing about Westminster is the number of signal-controlled junctions without green men such as the junction of Hill Street with South Audley Street. It's a junction which should not need traffic signals, but of course we are in Westminster where drivers are given priority and so it's busy enough to need them (for drivers).

My mood wasn't lifted by Park Lane, the westerly extent of my walk. Park Lane is a dual carriageway which is part of the London Inner Ring Road and was built on the eastern edge of Hyde Park in the early 1960s. Any modern attempts to rebalance the place does of course get dragged into culture wars, but mainly by people who think driving in Central London is sensible. 

It's horrible and I soon headed back into the side streets where I did see quite a nice tree pit on Park Street. Which was full of car parking. This always amuses me given what parking used to mean.

Parking the parking

I started to head east once more and I was now in the heart of Mayfair which is on the Monopoly board, but not a street. It was here that I stumbled upon a little gem in the traffic-soaked streets - Mount Street Gardens.

Mount Street Gardens

It was a lovely spot and I did sit in the shade of more London Planes for a few minutes to give my aching feet a rest. But not for long, I needed to keep moving as there was a bit of a walk to get back to Soho. 

Silence

Just as I left Mount Street Gardens, I saw a curious fountain wrapped around a couple of trees with vapour coming out of the water. It's called "silence" and is by the Japanese Architect Tadao Ando. 

As I walked through Mayfair, it felt like an odd place. It really seemed like a suburban town where quite a lot of people drove everywhere, despite being in public transport utopia - very much driving to the local shops territory. 

After a bit more zig-zagging I reached Regent Street and another square ticked off the list.

Regent Street

Regent Street, in common with large areas of this part of London, is owned by the Crown Estate and this means they and other property owners tend to have influence. Despite being a shopping destination it is (you've guessed it) another traffic sewer. 

There has been some work to widen the footways, but it's poor for cycling. There have been further plans which are a bit better, but after this May's location elections where Westminster City Council reverted to Conservative, who knows what might happen. The old London local government joke was that Westminster was a car parking company with a council attached to it. 

Great Marlborough Street

Just off Regent Street, I had an easy tick with Marlborough Street, except it doesn't technically exist; it's called Great Marlborough Street and apparently it was quite the street for car show rooms at the start of the 20th Century. These days, the only thing of real interest is the department store, Liberty's which is housed in a sprawling mock-Tudor building, although it is at least a respectable 150 years old.

Oxford Street

I finally headed west again to another famous shopping street which is also mired in controversy - Oxford Street. It's regarded as Europe's busiest shopping street, but the only purchase I made was a welcome couple of bottles of water from one of the on-street kiosks. It had got really hot and I did have another rest in the shade.

The controversy here is London's Mayor, Sadiq Khan, plans to pedestrianise part of the street and there is now a development corporation in place to deliver the vision. This means rerouting the buses that currently crawl along the street and some residents on the adjacent streets are not happy. 

The change back to the Conservatives here was perhaps helped by their opposition to this scheme and their manifesto included mounting a legal challenge to it. However within a few weeks of getting control of council again, they chickened out.

There are more complexities because so far, the plan is to ban cycling from the pedestrianised street and there are no concrete plans for providing alternative routes beyond words. The London Cycling Campaign has been trying to highlight this issue for some time.

In my view, a ban will as usual exclude those who generally follow the rules and who will be put at risk on other streets, especially where there are buses. Those who don't care much for rules (and this is complex) will carry on. This will lead for calls for enforcement and will demonise cycling as transport. It's a classic network issue that the UK is terrible at dealing with.

Anyway, the London Cycling Campaign has also been looking at a low traffic West End vision because the pace of change here has been glacial. 

Turning the corner

There were four more locations to visit, but this next phase of the walk was going to be tough as I headed into the afternoon's heat. First, I had to head northwest to collect my third station - Marylebone Station.

Marylebone Station

Other than when I was at university, I have lived in London for five decades and this was the first time I had visited Marylebone Station. The reason for this is it is tucked away on a back street and although it serves Birmingham and the Chiltern corridor, it is easier for me to use Euston for Birmingham and Paddington for Oxford coming from East London. I should probably give it a go next time I am heading in one of those directions!

Free parking

It reminded me of a sprawling Edwardian manor house (despite being Victorian). Who cares, it's a fascinating building and much quieter than the other London rail terminals. Apart from being handy for a loo stop, I also managed to find some free parking.

From Marylebone Station, my journey would now be east for the next 4km along the A501, another part of the London Inner Ring Road. The first section of the A501 is Marylebone Road and a rare sight in this part of London - a petrol station (above). It's part of Dorset House, a 1930's Art Deco complex which sports a 120 space car park where you can pay £10 per hour. Until fairly recently, Westminster City Council had a planning policy of protecting petrol stations!

A quick diversion

As I carried on east along Marylebone Road, I remembered that there had been a little bit of cycling infrastructure change in Regents Park - York Bridge to be precise. Give this would only add 250 metres to my walk, I thought it worth a diversion.

Looking north towards the bridge

The bridge had apparently been degraded by heavy traffic (of course) and needed restoration. As part of the work, the former two-way traffic layout had been replaced with one-way for general traffic, with a contraflow cycle track (above).

Regent's Park is owned by the Crown and the roads within the park (I know, right) are managed by the Crown Estate Paving Commission which is notorious vague in explaining what it does and this new layout was no exception as I couldn't find any plans online.

Looking south towards York Gate

For what it's worth, I thought the cycle track was too narrow with the risk of catching wheels on kerb upstands on both sides (above) and the awful cobbled ramps at the southern end (below). In this case, paint would have been better than kerbs!

Slippery when wet

On the home straight

As I continued east, the A501 became Euston Road and I entered the London Borough of Camden, although this the A501 is part of the Transport for London Road Network. And you've guessed it, another traffic sewer.

The Mayor's* Roads Task Force considered Marylebone Road and Euston Road featured in its 2013 report "London’s street family: theory and case studies" as a case study which classified the corridor as a "City Boulevard". Yes, there are lots of challenges here, but over a decade later, the place is still awful for walking, wheeling and cycling. (* that particular mayor was Boris Johnson.)

Euston Road

During the Pandemic, protected cycling space was added to this road and it became bearable to use as I found when I rode it in 2021, but it was short lived and removed by TfL which didn't have the appetite to be radical.

King's Cross Station

Walking along Euston Road was handy for collecting the final station of my journey - King's Cross. It's a part of London I remember from maybe 25 years ago when it was terribly run down and often sketchy to walk around. Euston Road remains awful, but the wider area has been the subject of years of regeneration and with neighbouring St Pancras Station, it's definitely a key national and international transport hub.

Pentonville Road

Just east of Kings Cross Station, the A501 becomes a bit of a gyratory for general traffic, but with bus priority measures including a contraflow bus lane. I took the eastern arm which becomes Pentonville Road and my penultimate Monopoly board square as I entered the London Borough of Islington.

The Angel

Pentonville Road is on a pretty steep hill and with legs feeling the pressure I did avail myself of a brief rest on a bench before continuing to my last square and lunch that would soon follow. The end of my walk was at the eastern end of Pentonville Road and a set of buildings at the junction with City Road and Islington High Street known as The Angel, Islington, which was (you've guessed it) almost demolished for a road scheme!

Beer though

It was now 14:30 and I was hungry, so I creaked my way into the Peacock pub and ordered what turned out to be an excellent Croque Monsieur, complemented with a couple of freezing cold pints of lager. My goodness, it was great to sit down.

My route

There are all sorts of ways in which to tackle this challenge and I will leave it up to you to decide what is the best, but for those interested, I have made a Google MyMap for my particular route which was arranged with that start at Whitechapel Station in mind.

Epilogue

The walk was a tough personal challenge and writing this post has easily taken me as long to write, and over several sessions. I never ask for money for my writing and I wasn't walking for sponsorship; but if you have enjoyed this post and have a couple of quid to spare, you could do worse than send it Living Streets Way.

See you next year with another long walk. I guess.