One of my friends at the office, George Price, once lived in London, and in fact was born in Paris.  When he heard that I would be visiting both places, he very kindly provided some helpful suggestions for this tourist -- where to exchange money, how much to tip, where to eat, and best of all, where I could find some interesting places I hadn't visited before.  When I told George I was planning to re-visit the "Perfect London Walk," he suggested I might also want to try his favorite walk -- a stroll along Regent's Canal from Little Venice, past Regent's Park, and on to Camden Town.  Sounded good to me.

And in fact, this walk is even mentioned as an also-ran in Roger Ebert's book.  For good reason, actually -- this is a part of London I'd not have guessed existed.

So what exactly is this place all about?  It seems that in the 1800's England was crisscrossed by miles and miles of canal waterways that were used for commerce.  The canals and the locks were narrow, though, so the boats that traveled the waterways came to be known as "narrowboats."  Here's what Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, says about it:

Due to reasons of economy and constraints upon 18th century engineering technology, the early canals were built to a narrow width. The standard dimension of canal locks introduced by Brindley in 1766 were 72 feet 7 inches (22.1 metres) long by 7 feet 6 inches (2.3 metres) wide. This limited the size of the boats (which came to be called narrowboats), and thus limited the quantity of the cargo they could carry to around 30 tonnes. You can read the entire article here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_British_canal_system

Wikipedia also talks about Regent's Canal, which passes through Little Venice:

Now that the history lecture is over, let's have a look at Regent's Canal itself, and some of those beautiful narrowboats.  Apparently they were so narrow that if a man sat in the middle of one and outstretched his arms, he'd span the entire width.

It's like a long marina where people live in their boats and keep little gardens at their docks.

It was a beautiful day for a walk.  This was Friday, July 23, 2004.

The guidebooks said the boats were brightly colored and bore clever names. 

Looking back into one of the several tunnels I walked through.  I had wondered whether I'd be walking through a bad part of town or something, whether there would be danger.  But in fact, there were fellow walkers all along the way, and the neighborhoods through which I walked were very nice indeed.

See what I mean?  A mansion on a hill.

And another.  This one with Greek columns.  Can't get much more posh than this place.

Now we've arrived at the London Zoo.  The canal passes right through the Zoo, but it's separated from the Zoo proper by fences.  Still, people strolling along the canal can see a few of the animals.  Over there on the left are some, well, things with horns.

See that gray lump the people are watching?  It's a huge ugly pig with bushy hair growing on its snout.

Oh look!  A picturesque Chinese restaurant.

Surrounded by narrowboats. Where else but in London?

This was a peaceful scene -- that narrowboat gliding toward me. 

And here we are at the end of the walk -- Camden Town.  This is Camden Locks.

Camden Town itself is a ghastly awful tourist trap, full of cheap t-shirt shops, souvenir stands, and druggie bazaars.  I quickly found a subway station and rode to Embankment to see Somerset House.