BudgetTravel

As usual, it was the National Theatre that captured us, with a café table available for our picnic, ringside of the amphitheater, where a troupe of young thespians performed a raucous entertainment. They were followed by a Congolese Soukous band that knew all about good vibes and how to spread them. As evening advanced, we were overwhelmed with choices--two discount plays and some sort of multimedia rave later on at the National, or the Japanese art-film festival next door--but we'd had enough. It was dusk, time to stroll across the Millennium Bridge, into the wide-open arms of Central London's cityscape.

The more I resisted the reflexive urge to mentally convert pounds to dollars, the happier I became. Cruelly, the credit card company did it for me: It took me exactly one whopping monthly statement to realize that dining frequently in London's restaurants would quickly earn me enough miles for a return ticket to New York, alone and in debt.

Notting Hill (Clive Frost) APRIL 2005 ISSUE • Table of Contents • Learning to Love London • The Motel Gets Its Groove Back • Singapore: This Article Has Not Been Authorized • The Easy, Breezy Riviera Maya • How To Buy Broadway Tickets • Amsterdam's Eastern Docklands • Travel the World and Write it Off MORE ON LONDON • Snap Guide: London • Learning to Love London • Trip Coach: Planning a London Vacation • London • 20 Secret Bargains of London • How to Eat in London and Gain Pounds • London's Low-Priced Hotel Rooms

And thus we hatched the genius strategy of building excursions around days at the market, where comparatively inexpensive delicacies compete for attention. We cultivated our picnic technique in London's abundant and extremely well-appointed parks. When it was time to splash out, as they also say, we had to plan ahead or fall into the ever-present trap of an $80 pizza lunch or a perfectly mediocre $120 dinner for two. Our favorite park in Central London quickly became St. James's, between the Thames and Buckingham Palace, initially because we went there to neck on our first date, and thereafter because it offered a full menu of options.

As with all the London parks, St. James's enjoys the rain dividend and the benefits of being in a land where the arts of gardening and landscaping are staples of prime-time television. The resulting bounty of luscious habitat is not lost on the bird population; some 47 species of waterfowl call the place home at one time or another, if you believe the placard next to the lake.

Also on the lake is a wonderfully clever mixed-use restaurant, Inn the Park, catering to a clientele of businesspeople, ladies who lunch, and clued-in tourists. Modern but comfortably so, the Inn has pondside alfresco seating and a versatile brasserie menu. The beauty of the place is that it also provides exactly the same prime seating to consumers of take-out drinks, snacks, and meals from its organic sandwich and salad canteen. How very democratic.

Being in a celebratory frame of mind--our first meal out with the baby, on the day we took him to the embassy to become officially American--I went for the splash-out option: gazpacho, oysters, steak, wine, dessert. Okay, it was not a cheap meal ($150), but it was an occasion. Afterward we sunbathed on canvas deck chairs of the kind provided in many of London's parks at the entirely reasonable fee of £1 apiece, and purred like a little lion family after a good feed. (Until our son erupted in an inconsolable, high-decibel crying jag, shattering the peace and quiet of the entire park, scattering cormorant, coot, and great-crested grebe alike.)

Other of our most memorable meals took place before the arrival of the turbo-lunged one, in gastropubs. At its best, this category, indigenous to the Realm, represents a melding of two worlds: pubby atmosphere and an ambitious kitchen, with prices far lower than at comparable proper restaurants.

"With this exchange rate, if I can't put it in my mouth, I'm not gonna buy it," said a visiting foodie friend, so I made sure we had a suitable dining destination on our day trip to the north of the city. As promised, Hampstead has oodles of English-village charm, despite its in-town location. Sidewalk planters on tiny lanes and mews overflowed with geraniums and impatiens in a way that seemed generous rather than self-conscious; the shops were lively with personality, refreshing in a town that can feel choked with dreary chains. And the Holly Bush provided everything we could have wanted for an early-summer-afternoon supper. Downstairs is a venerable pub, reliably dark and smoky inside, with a gang of bright young things quaffing pitchers of Pimm's Cup on the sidewalk. Upstairs, a light, high-ceilinged dining room serves a very British menu (sausages, lamb, meat pies) with adventuresome ingredients in the sauces and salads (and even some vegetarian options). The three of us had a wonderful meal, notable for the warm, easygoing vibe of the entire experience, which retained its nice afterglow even when the credit card company did the math ($126).

To me, shopping for its own sake holds about as much allure as outpatient surgery--so it says something that I'd happily go with the Foxy French Girl through London's famous markets. Notting Hill's Portobello Road to the west and Spitalfields to the east are variations on a funky-chic theme, both awash in legions of fashion-aware young women with eyes set on original designs at bargain prices. And both markets are in cool neighborhoods, worth checking out even when it's not market day. Notting Hill is like New York City's Greenwich Village, boho-gone-upscale, with more in the way of collectible bric-a-brac that you buy when traveling because you simply won't find it elsewhere. Spitalfields is more heavily tattooed, with an accent on home and fashion accessories. It's also the gateway into the very "now" neighborhood of Shoreditch. This is the place to go cool-hunting for streetwear like limited-edition hip-hop sneakers that come with certificates of ownership proclaiming them to be "one of only 70 pairs worldwide."

I'll pass on those, thanks--but it's fun to know they're there. These excursions were never really about the food or the shopping, anyway. They were about urban adventure. Yes, I was armed with clippings and guidebooks, but, in fact, that was all a matter of putting ourselves into position for the unexpected: We were never disappointed when we simply relaxed and let serendipity take over. London is endlessly rewarding that way.

On the first of our many trips to Richmond--a posh movie set of a village on the Thames at the southwestern city limits--on our first picnic on the first weekend we ever spent together, we settled in for a nap under a tree by the river. We were joined by a group of Middle Eastern gentlemen and a few charming children, whose energy and volume levels were running a bit higher than our own. Before long, the senior member of the party loomed over us, and, in a courtly tone, said, "Good afternoon. We are from Baghdad, Iraq, and we would like to invite you to join us for some tea."

Soon we were sipping minty chai from tiny glasses, toking cranberry-flavored tobacco from a hookah, and discussing world events at a time of fraught relations between our home countries. At least we were doing our part for world peace. Then talk turned to London. The éminence grise expounded a bit, as was his wont. London, he said, was the crossroads of the world, first because of traditional patterns of immigration from the Commonwealth, and more recently from the new waves of strivers flooding in daily from Eastern European nations being added to the EU. Furthermore, as one who had lived in the U.S. and France during his long exile, he was of the opinion that London was the business and creative capital of the world, here in the early years of the third millennium.