THE CITY OF STRANGERS

In many ways, I think London might be too big.

It was always going to be the hardest capital city to get to grips with. There are two reasons, and, yes, I knew them both before I hopped on the train to get here. They are: I've been coming here all my life, and, I'm still not sure I really like it.

So, I resolutely decided that I would try not to let either of those things influence me today. I would arrive, I thought, and treat it as a brand new experience. I'd be open-minded about this city, do things I wouldn't normally have done, go to places I've not really seen or thought about. And crucially, I reminded myself, I would not take the tube anywhere at all this weekend. Nope, none of that getting on at one subterranean tunnel and getting out at another. None of those long, postered escalators or that wind whistling from the squeaking of the London Underground trains flashing and rumbling out of the darkness. Instead I wanted to see how this fine city fits together, get a feel for its streets and atmosphere. I would walk, I decided, everywhere.

My legs are stiff, I've hurt my knee and I've done 29,000 steps in half a day.

See? Too big. Probably too big to be a city actually; it's much more like a small country, its component cultures flexing together in a mishmash of accents and ideas. It's old, yes. It's new too. It's scary (more on that in a bit) but it's also friendlier than expected. It's tightly packed, it's expensive and noisy - but it's also quiet, exciting and serene in places too. What it clearly is, in everyone's book, is enormous. And that makes it much tougher to describe.

I arrived, found my hotel, stood in the corridor, booking in while wondering about the flock wallpaper, and then headed out into the late afternoon sunset.

I'm instantly struck by the way this city hums. It has a background sound all of its own, and as I walked through it, listening to my phone give me directions, I heard that gentle pulse of chatter and traffic that is London's unspoken heartbeat.

"Turn right," said the voice in my ears.

"What? Into the park?"  I retorted out loud. Some Chinese girls looked at me suddenly and decided they'd prefer the other side of the road.

I did turn right though, and quickly found myself in Hyde Park. Okay I'll be honest, I have always loved the parks in London. In the Summer they're alive with happy lunchers and picnics and laughter. In the winter, they're fresh and cool and the wind convinces you you're far from the centre of a city. Wide paths cut off in all directions between leafy, tree-lined avenues and fountains bubble between statues of horses and war heroes not forgotten.

I stopped. Ahead, through the brittle arms of the trees I could see the Albert Memorial and the Royal Albert Hall glowing behind it. To my left, the Post Office Tower rose above the tree-line. To my right, almost silhouetted against the sunset, was Kensington Palace, with its distinctive gates and red bricks. I took some photos. It occurred to me suddenly, that I'm here at a really lovely time of year: piles of crispy leaves, the trees losing the last of their colour yet still looking magnificent, and the cold bright sun painting everything gold before it slips beneath the buildings in a fiery blaze of orange and yellow ochre at the end of the day. Beautiful, I thought, as I watched it go. The end of the day.

I looked at my watch. It was 3:30pm.

I was on my way to the V&A Museum, which is probably my favourite. It isn't that far from the Royal Albert Hall, so I kept walking until Google Maps pointed me down Exhibition Road. And there I was, in rooms of mahogany and tea, thinking about Peter Pan and Wendy, and Dickens and John Dunne, and St Paul's Cathedral and Christopher Wren and Queen Victoria and Paddington Bear.

Another consequence of London's size is that it doesn't feel very safe either. It's a massive, sprawling city of strangers, all refusing to make eye contact, all scared to ask the time or for directions: headphones in - rest of the world out.

Even crossing the road is hazardous! A few times today, I wondered whether the green-man himself was really sure I could cross without getting beeped at.

Unfortunately, recent events in the city seem to have given it a jump of nervousness too. There was an episode today at Oxford Circus apparently, where a whole load of people ran out of the station because they thought they'd heard gun shots. It turned out to be nothing, but the panic was certainly real. An hour or so later, while helicopters were buzzing and sirens still wailing, I was walking along, when a lorry ran over an empty plastic bottle. It popped with a surprisingly loud crack and two girls near me screamed and started running. I don't think that would have happened in any of the other cities I've visited.

I went for dinner (walking past the luminous netherworld of neon UFOs and spinning wheels calling itself a 'winter wonderland') and then plugged in my headphones for the journey back to my hotel.

London is a big city, and I think I feel small and anonymous in the middle of it. I reminded myself of the music of Dublin, the friendly sports-fans who'd almost rugby-tackled me in the street there, and how I hadn't been in the least bit afraid that night. I remembered Edinburgh, and how classy and refined it had felt. I never once felt unsafe there either. Even Cardiff, with its young people hobbling through the streets and its inability to make up its mind what kind of city it was, had a compact, almost homely feel to it. This feels different, and maybe I'll get a better view tomorrow, but so far, London, this experience of London, is very much convincing me that it is indeed a city of strangers, and I'm just another one right in the middle of its vast glimmering metropolis.