Tell her: Paris

As planned, I set out on my Shakespearean sojourn on Sunday, provisions and Holga medium format camera (incl. fish-eye lens) in my handlebar bag. A grey, still, dusty day. Empty streets. Here is a map of my planned itinerary (you may have to click 'view larger map' to see my actual route):



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The first stop on my tour, Gray's Inn, was bounded by an impregnable fence. I took a photo of the CCTV cameras and continued onwards. I stopped at Star Yard, a narrow-shouldered alley off Chancery Lane, to consult my notes. As I propped against the wall alongside my bike, a small party of people emerged from a low doorway. The procession moved silently past me before disappearing into an adjoining passageway beneath a fringe of spikes. An intermediary door lay ajar for a moment before someone quietly closed it from within.

I got on my bike and continued down the alleyway, emerging onto Fleet Street. Beneath my wheels, a river. The doors to Middle Temple Lane were closed. I coasted past, then turned down a small side entrance which took me unexpectedly into the shady interior.

Here it was startlingly silent, the city a distant haze of sound. I bore right onto Bell Lane. Middle Temple Hall rose before me, the Thames flowing just beyond. I carried my bike down a long flight of stairs, past a small man smoking a pipe at its foot, then sheepishly carried it back up again upon discovering that the gates were locked. I looked through a fence at a little cell of greenery bordered by carefully ordered flower gardens.

Re-mounting, I jounced down a precipitous cobbled street, past a toll-gate, and up and along to Ireland Yard and Playhouse Yard. For several minutes I went up and down the pathways, retracing my wheels.

In the midst of these circumlocutions I became aware of a man hovering behind me, shifting in and out of my peripheral vision. I glanced back. He was astride a black British Brompton, the well-known folding bike. I was uncertain how long he'd been there.

Assuming he wanted to pass, I pulled to one side, but he drew silently back. Experimentally I veered left -- he followed smartly. We continued in formation through the quiet, narrow streets.

I was considering engaging my silent pursuer in conversation when he suddenly accelerated and shot past me, then abruptly turned down a side street. I passed in time to see him step through a doorway, the bike folded neatly beneath his arm, and close the door.

I stopped at the next turning to take a photograph. As I focussed I happened to look up into the face of a woman observing me through a window. She was standing wordlessly with a telephone pressed to her ear. Above us at an oblique angle I could see the lower-half of a man seated at his desk, his bare ankle jiggling.

Around a corner was another bedroom-sized garden. It was locked, too.

Ireland Yard, Playhouse Yard: nothing here now but place names. But what did I expect to find? I wondered to myself.

I stopped at a pub, my bike locked to a rail. I listened to a group of complaining builders. 'If she asks about the room, I'll just say: Paris,' said one of them, cryptically.

I continued, crossing the Thames via the structurally dubious Millennium Bridge. The Tate Modern's giant finger loomed. I merely skirted the simulacrum Globe. I wanted to find the Rose Theatre. Closed. I saw some drawings of roses on a building and stopped to take a photograph.

A door opened further up the street and a man appeared. He said something. Then: 'Excuse me! Oh… you're taking a photo.' He promptly withdrew and closed the door.

I continued onwards to the site of the original Globe. Again, a fence prevented access, but I could make out the bricked outline of the circular foundations in the carpark.

I proceeded to Southwark Cathedral, then back across the Thames.

I became lost in Dalston. Coffee in Columbia Flower Market.

A brief detour through Haggerston Park, re-orienting myself with the help of my A-Z.

Eventually I found a plaque on Curtain Road, Shoreditch, designating the site of the Theatre, now occupied by the offices of a real estate conglomerate.

I noted both bar-end plugs had fallen out of my handelbars during the course of my journey.

Nothing really remained but the shape of the streets, and the rivers.

Homewards.