Sights of London: Baker Street

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I grew up loving English classics and Sherlock Holmes is definitely one of my all-time favourites. Naturally, one of the places on top of my "to-visit-in-London list" was Baker Street.

The home of Sherlock Holmes was said to be 221b Baker Street. However, according to Wikipedia, Number 221 never actually existed during the famous detective's time. Back then, Baker Street only went up to about 100. When Number-Two-Twenty-One actually came into existence, it was made into a Sherlock Holmes museum and has been attracting visitors from all over the world ever since.

Getting to Baker Street was a piece of cake (no pun intended) -- there's a Tube station (also called Baker Street) at its mouth. For your information, Baker Street is within London Underground Zone 1, so a ride from central London should cost £1.80.

Above ground, you'll be greeted with signboards.

Madam Tussauds' wax museum is also not far away.

Once on Baker Street, just look for 221.

Well, actually I still managed to lose my way that day. For 15 minutes or so.

Anyway, after a while, I immediately knew I was at the right place. Sherlock Holmes's silhouette began to appear literally everywhere. Cafés, bars, dry cleaners, restaurants, all sported the side profile with a pipe.

221 itself was unsuspecting. Other than the rather distracting Museum signboard, everything looked perfectly ordinary. It was as if Sherlock Holmes was still alive and was living among the ordinary, not yet becoming a legend.

I was a little less fortunate that day. It was a Saturday evening and the museum was closed.

Yet I was still satisfied to be able to knock on the door of the world's most famous detective.

A mock-up of a police notice, asking Sherlock Holmes for help on solving a seemingly complicated murder case.


A pose beside Baker Street Underground station's escalator. Took me multiple tries to get this right -- hundreds of people went pass me and gave me different kinds of looks.

What an honour.