Walking on Baker Street
Everyone has a travel style, and mine is very much about absorbing and feeling the atmosphere of a place. I find much more joy walking around a city taking pictures and peeking into shop windows (or more likely keeping a weather eye out for bookshops) than I do in going inside a museum. That’s not to say there isn’t joy to be found in a good museum, but especially if I only have a short amount of time in a place, I’d rather spend it moving around the city.
On my first trip to London in 2011 with my husband, we’d only planned to spend two days there at either end of our two week adventure. I’d made a list of all the London references I could think of that I’d like to see, and the home of the world’s only consulting detective was a high priority. I’d been enamored by the world of Sherlock Holmes ever since watching The Great Mouse Detective as a child. As a teenager I picked up the source material that inspired Basil of Baker Street, where I was as amazed as Dr. Watson at Sherlock’s deductive powers, if slightly shocked that a literary hero used cocaine.
Since our London itinerary was full, I didn’t feel the need to go in the Sherlock Holmes Museum, though my husband and I did enjoy a wander around the well-curated gift shop. It was enough to walk down that famous street in the company of the stories.