Introductions

[kake]

Hello flaneurs! I thought we could start off this community by finding out a bit about each other and our interests. I don't have any fixed ideas about how I want the community to be used, and am happy to let it evolve in response to its members' desires.

So, if you feel so inclined, please leave a comment below! Here are some suggestions for you to copy/paste and fill in, but these are all optional — feel free to use just the ones you want to answer, or even to forget about them entirely and write something freeform.

<strong>My preferred name (if it's different from my username):</strong> <strong>My last urban ramble/adventure was:</strong> <strong>My next urban ramble/adventure will probably be:</strong> <strong>Favourite type(s) of urban environment:</strong> <strong>Favourite type(s) of constraint (for those who like putting constraints on their rambles):</strong> <strong>Cities/towns I've explored (and how):</strong> <strong>Cities/towns I want to explore (and why):</strong> <strong>Three things I tend to notice when I'm wandering through a city:</strong> <strong>Anything else relevant:</strong>

Comments

[oursin]

My last urban ramble/adventure was: Depending on whether you count the family excursion to Margate on the May Bank Holiday Weekend, or partner and myself going to Ally Pally and walking down the Nature Trail to Highgate the previous weekend.
My next urban ramble/adventure will probably be: Couldn't really predict - may not happen until I'm in Madison for Wiscon, but a smallscale ramble around Bloomsbury or elsewhere in London is not outwith possibility.
Favourite type(s) of urban environment: Have water somewhere - sea, river, lake, canals, ponds, fountains, cascades; and unexpected juxtapositions.
Favourite ways to explore urban environment: On foot, by bus (but how few cities have doubledeckers to sit on the top of, which is perhaps the ne plus ultra for leisurely urban travel), and by water
Favourite type(s) of constraint (for those who like putting constraints on their rambles): I quite like the purposive ramble a la Virginia Woolf's essay on the subject - setting out with some not-too urgent errand and following where it leads.
Cities/towns I've explored (and how): UK: London, Edinburgh, Bath, Canterbury, Norwich, Coventry (if 'explore' includes 'desperately try to find somewhere to eat that isn't Pizza Hut, KFC or MacD'), York, numerous south coast resorts, Blackpool, Manchester, the Potteries
Europe: Paris, Lyon, Dijon, Arles, Avignon, Toulon, Bandol, Nimes; Madrid, Barcelona, Granada, Malaga, Toledo, Segovia; Lisbon, Oporto, Braga, Aveiro, Viana di Castelo; Munich, Hamburg, Berlin, Lubeck; Vienna, Salzburg; Budapest; Brussels, Bruges, Ghent; Amsterdam, The Hague, Leiden, Haarlem; Copenhagen, Kronborg; Oslo, Bergen; Stockholm, Uppsala; Rome, Florence, Venice, Prato, Naples, Amalfi, Capri (not exactly urban, but flanage-central), Bari, Lecce, Matera, Alberobella, Ostuni, Verona, Padua, Sirmione; Athens, Napflio, Mykonos Town, Paros Town, Sifnos Town and also Kastro on Sifnos, Skiathos, Skopelos, Skyros, Thera (and do ruins count?)
Asia: Kabul, Herat, Peshawar, Rawalpindi, Lahore, Karachi, Delhi, Singapore
Australasia: Sydney, Brisbane, Cairns, Melbourne, Adelaide, Christchurch, Akaroa, Greymouth
North America: New York, Boston/Cambridge, Northampton, Chicago, Washington DC, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Madison, Minneapolis, San Francisco, Claremont, Urbana-Champaign (not really a flaneur's conurbation, but I tried), Hamilton (0N), Halifax (NS)
Cities/towns I want to explore (and why): What I like is finding myself somewhere for some reason (conference, research, etc) and exploring.
Three things I tend to notice when I'm wandering through a city: Bookshops. Fountains. Weird or incongruous things.
Anything else relevant: So much of London still to explore!

[kake]

I am totally with you on the bus thing. When I first moved to London I did a fair bit of exploring-by-bus, and even now when I'm on an unfamiliar route I usually spend most of the journey peering out the window.

Oh! I just remembered some bus route annotation that some of us did ages ago. That was kind of fun. The bus stop IDs mentioned in that post are described here.