When you are looking for a good restaurant in a strange and unfamiliar town, ask the locals: that is the Golden Rule Of How To Eat Well.
It is an equally Golden Rule for picking the right hike. If you can, always ask your host: where do you go or take your family for a weekend outing?
When you visit North London, however, you can save your breath. I can give you the answer to that question myself, having lived in that part of the world for nearly ten years.
Here is the (former) local’s advice: make your way to the Alexandra Palace, or, to call it by its more familiar nickname, the …
What is so great about the Ally Pally aka Alexandra Palace you may ask? Well, there are three reasons why it is so beloved by the people who live in the area.
Number one, the large number of trails through the surprisingly various landscape, half-park, …
… half landscaped forest.
Do not just walk straight from the train station up the hill to the building: make a detour here and there, straying from the main path into the underwood on either side.
There are many pretty routes to discover there.
Reason number two for the Ally Pally’s lasting popularity is the building itself: built as the “People’s Palace” and opened in 1873, it still hosts many popular exhibitions, concerts and shows as well as London’s largest ice rink.
The Palace is as handsome …
… as it is full of modern history.
Most Londoners know that one part of the building was the birthplace of television: it was here where, in 1936, the first transmissions of the then highly experimental new medium were produced.
But few people even in this part of the world will remember the 14 Hour Technicolour Dream, a truly seminal event in pop music history which many experts in contemporary history regard as the moment when the myth of Swinging London was created.
The event – on 29 April 1967 – featured two concert stages, where – among others – the Rolling Stones and Pink Floyd played, and a smaller stage for poets, jugglers and ballet performances (by groups such as the Tribe of the Sacred Mushroom).
Yoko Ono asked visitors to cut stripes off a model’s gown (it is said that this is where she met John Lennon), and Andy Warhol was so overwhelmed by it all that he retired to the car park for nearly the entire duration of the event. (There is an exhibition in the Palace’s lobby that documents some highlights of the building’s history.)
Walk around the building, casting a glance through the side doors into the main auditorium. This will give you a good impression of the building’s vast scale.
The hall that you have seen so far, after all, was only the vestibule: this is the main stage, which – at the time of our visit – was being prepared for London’s largest antiques market on the following weekend.
This is also where the darts world championships take place every mid-winter.
While walking around the building, you will also find out more about the Palace’s chequered history. A plaque reminds visitors that the complex accommodated 17,000 German soldiers and civilians during WWI who were imprisoned and interned here for the duration of the war.
And you will have plenty of opportunity to find out all about reason number three for the Ally Pally aka Alexandra Palace’s lasting popularity: its great views over London.
Finally, there is a large cafeteria near the Palm Court entrance on the building’s southern side.
It may be better, however, to exercise your patience and wait a bit for something even better to come your way, keeping on straight before turning right towards the tunnel and eventually into Dukes Avenue.
Just continue down this road, and in 15 to 20 minutes, you will be in Muswell Hill, one of London’s prettiest suburbs.
Unshowily affluent Muswell Hill is an Edwardian gem full of handsome buildings, independent restaurants and charity shops with a fantastically wide choice of second-hand books, records and clothes: a great place to round off your trip.
The easiest way to the Ally Pally aka Alexandra Palace is via the eponymous train station. You can access the line from either Liverpool Street or Finsbury Park, the largest intersections with the underground rail network.
Alternatively, you can also take the underground (Piccadilly Line) to Wood Green station and cross over the main road (Green Lanes) for a 15 minute walk through some leafy streets of an otherwise very unleafy part of North London.
If you stroll a little through Wood Green – particularly on the other side of Green Lanes in the direction of Tottenham – you will see a side of London that is rarely talked about in tourism brochures. It certainly provides an interesting contrast to Muswell Hill: one would not expect such a difference between two London suburbs that are a little more than a mile away from each other.
Which is, if you are interested in this type of exploration, one more good reason to take this walk: one in a line of many.
