“The flat is perfect!” my mother’s best friend told her enthusiastically. “You’re a bit outside the city, but there’s a Tube stop right on the corner, so you’re just minutes from everything.”
My parents, novice European travelers, welcomed advice from a veteran of many British tours and rented the flat in a neighborhood north of the London suburb of Hampstead for their 10-day stay. But as they set off on the first morning of their visit, they confronted an obstacle that hadn’t occurred to their well-meaning friend: the long, steep staircase leading down to the Tube station, with no elevator anywhere in sight. A chance for brisk exercise to most tourists, but to my father, confined to a wheelchair, the stairs might as well have been a locked gate.
London can seem forbidding to the disabled traveler, particularly one on a budget. Many of its most affordable accommodations are bed-and-breakfasts — with your room up three flights of stairs and the bathroom down the hall. Most of its fabled palaces and abbeys were built centuries before anyone thought of handicapped accommodations, and adding an elevator to the Tower of London would seem like sacrilege. And the Underground — London’s beloved Tube — boasts elevators at only a few random stations, most of them nowhere near where tourists want to go.
In 1995, Britain passed the Disability Discrimination Act, similar to the Americans With Disabilities Act in the U.S. All new construction, and major renovations undertaken since then, must be accessible. The law is supposed to require modifications affecting “listed” (historic) sites as well — but specifics as to how and when places like Westminster Abbey will be fully accessible to the disabled (and just what is meant by “accessible” for each individual site) are still pretty vague.
But it’s not impossible for the disabled traveler to visit London and enjoy virtually all the same sights an able-bodied tourist would. It just takes a little flexibility, a little initiative and a lot of planning. Londoners’ legendary politeness will also help you overcome a lot of obstacles. (One of the highlights of my parents’ trip was a “rescue mission” mounted by three burly Brits, inexplicably dressed in tatty fake-fur tiger costumes, who hoisted my father’s chair over a rampless curb too steep for the couple to negotiate.)
Getting around
It’s a good bet that many years will pass before the venerable Tube, London’s greatest convenience, is anything resembling convenient for the disabled traveler. The first of its more than 200 stations opened in 1863, and some look like they haven’t been renovated since then. Elevators aren’t an option at most stops in central London, and most escalators are steep and intimidating if not impossible for the mobility-impaired.
Fortunately, there’s an alternative that costs a bit more but comes with its very own tour guide — a traditional London black cab. Unlike their often-surly brethren in New York and Washington, London cabdrivers don’t just drive — they sell their city. Zipping along the north bank of the Thames, one driver educated my parents on the history of Cleopatra’s needle and quizzed them on what was “wrong” with the edifice. (The two Sphinxes “guarding” it were facing the needle, a rather inconvenient pose for a sentry.)
City taxis are all required to be accessible to the wheelchair traveler by the year 2000, and nearly 70 percent of them are adapted already, with special seating and ramps available. Watch for the wheelchair symbol decal on the passenger-side window of the passing taxi, and you can wheel in and out of the wide backseat area with just a quick duck of the head.
For day trips outside London, intercity trains are speedy and convenient, and most of London’s train stations are accessible to the disabled. To negotiate the steep step up — often over an intimidating gap — into the train itself, simply find the stationmaster (it helps to call ahead if you know when you’ll be traveling). Not only will he set up a nifty fold-out ramp, but he’ll call ahead to your destination, ensuring that an attendant with a similar ramp will be waiting at the other end. “We were wondering how we’d find the guy with the ramp,” recalls my father of their arrival at Hampton Court Palace, “but we didn’t have to. The doors just opened and there he was, right at our car and the closest door to us.”
Tourist attractions
Sights built after the implementation of Britain’s access law, like Shakespeare’s New Globe Theater and Museum (a painstakingly accurate reconstruction of Shakespeare’s original theater) and the new British Library (featuring everything from the Magna Carta to Lennon and McCartney’s notes for “I Want to Hold Your Hand”) are fully accessible. But what about the more ancient experiences? As my parents learned, there’s a lot the wheelchair traveler can see in London.
Beginning almost at sunrise most mornings, the statue of Queen Victoria that fronts Buckingham Palace wears a lap robe of camera-wielding tourists, and visitors jam the Mall and Birdcage Walk to jostle for a good space from which to view the majesty of the Changing of the Guard ceremony. Fortunately, the mobility-impaired don’t have to arrive with the sun in order to be sure of seeing anything but a sea of heads when the time-honored rite takes place. A note ahead of time to the comptroller in the Office of the Lord Chamberlain at Buckingham Palace (include the dates of your stay in London and contact information — don’t forget a fax number!) yields you not a mere spot at the railing with the rest of the thronging mass, but a smiling escort inside the palace gates. Disabled travelers and their companions can actually watch the Changing of the Guard from the forecourt of Buckingham Palace itself, close enough to reach out and touch the bearskin cap on that Coldstream Guardsman marching by. (From this vantage point, you’ll also see that those stone-faced sentries do actually talk to each other.)
One of London’s best-kept secrets (it’s in all the guidebooks, but visitors hustling to the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey often skip it) is the Cabinet War Rooms, the perfectly preserved underground HQ from which Churchill and his cabinet directed allied war efforts during the Blitz. On V-E day, the occupants of this elaborate bunker simply locked the doors behind them and walked away. Now tourists can view the walls covered with original maps used to track enemy advances and lists of allied planes lost, the rooms set up for urgent combat strategy meetings, and Churchill’s own subterranean bedroom — from which he often directed policy while lingering under the covers of a morning. Here, as with most of London’s attractions, there are concessions for disabled travelers: the mobility-impaired get in for half price, and so does anyone pushing a wheelchair. It’s also one of the city’s most accessible sites, offering an elevator straight down to the War Rooms, which are completely flat. Just be sure to approach from the Horse Guards Road side; if you cut across from Whitehall on King Charles Street, you’ll face a daunting set of stairs.
The Tower of London wasn’t designed with the disabled in mind — perhaps not surprising, considering that its oldest structure, the White Tower, was built by William the Conqueror in the 11th Century. The cobbled, sometimes sloping paths leading through what is actually a series of 24 towers are enough to rattle a wheelchair traveler’s teeth and prepare the person pushing the chair for the Olympics. But many of the Tower’s key attractions are viewable for the visitor with limited mobility — including the site of the famous scaffold where three luckless Queens of England (among others) lost their heads, and the celebrated ravens who cop an attitude that says they know they supposedly hold the key to the survival of the British monarchy under their clipped wings. The Crown Jewels exhibit is also completely accessible, viewed from a moving walkway that offers the wheelchair visitor a break from wheeling. Here, disabled individuals get an admissions discount, and a chair-pusher gets in free.
Cap off your visit to London with a night at the theater. Most West End theaters and the very popular Royal National Theatre are gracious and accommodating for disabled audience members. Some have specific wheelchair seating that they must hold aside, so in the event a popular show is sold out, you may hit the jackpot. Typically, West End shows also offer two-for-one tickets for the mobility-impaired. Ask when you book your seats, and most will also arrange for you to be met at the theater’s most accessible entrance.
Thanks to the blokes in the tiger suits and the cabdriver who told priceless tales of London while unpacking his wheelchair ramp, my parents are already planning their next visit. “I didn’t think we’d be able to manage it at first,” my mother says. “But we saw almost everything we really wanted to see — and in some cases we even saw more than other tourists.”
Even the drunks spilling from a pub into the street on a Saturday night yanked each other out of the way to clear a path on the sidewalk for my father’s wheelchair. As my mother notes, “If there isn’t a way, most of the time, Londoners will make a way. We can’t wait to go back.”
IF YOU GO
– WHAT TO READ
Every disabled traveler to England’s capital should own a copy of “Travel Access in London: A Guide for Those Who Have Problems Getting Around,” by Gordon Couch, William Forrester and Justin Irwin (Quiller Press; $11.95). Exhaustively compiled by teams of able-bodied and disabled researchers, this book begins where the wheelchair symbol leaves off and covers accommodations, transportation, sights, shopping, entertainment and day trips.
– LODGING
Since the Tube is a lost cause, the disabled traveler to London can save a lot on cab fares by finding centrally located accommodations. Some recommendations (add 011-44 to all phone numbers when calling from the U.S.):
The Regent Palace Hotel, Piccadilly Circus (171-734-7000; fax 171-734-6435), has lately been offering doubles for about $95 per night. It has lifts and a flat entrance, but none of the rooms have their own baths.
The Henry VIII Hotel, Bayswater (north of Kensington; 171-262-0117; fax 171-706-0472), has singles for about $118, doubles $144. It is step-free throughout via two lifts and has a number of ground-floor bedrooms. You can book both the Regent Palace and Henry VIII on-line through HotelGuide London (london.hotelguide.net).
The Mabledon Court Hotel, Bloomsbury (171-388-3866; fax 171-387-5686; www.s-h-systems.co.uk/hotels/mabledon.html), has singles for about $100, doubles $117. There is one step-in at the entrance, lifts to all floors and basement dining room.
The Copthorne Tara Hotel, Kensington (171-937-7211; fax 171-937-7100), has 10 fully accessible rooms specifically designed for the disabled. Rack rates are around $295 for a double, but the British Hotel Reservation Centre (www.bhrconline.com) has discounted rates of $208.
– INFORMATION
Holiday Care Service (1293-774535; fax 1293-784647) produces an information sheet on accessible lodgings in London.
The Royal Association for Disability and Rehabilitation (RADAR), the central coordinating body for voluntary groups concerned with the disabled, also coordinates groups preparing access guides throughout Britain. Contact them at 171-250-3222; fax 171-250-0212; www.radar.org.uk.
Artsline has advice on access to all arts and entertainment activities. Call 171-388-2227; fax 171-383-2653.
Tripscope has free advice on the best way to get “from here to there” in and around London — and the obstacles you may meet. Call 181-994-9294; fax 181-994-3618.
