Ode To Freddie — My Visit to Garden Lodge (Freddie Mercury House)
This is part of a series of Travel post I’ve been publishing on my blog My Parallel Musicverse. Please visit here if you’d like to read more.
Hello everyone. It’s been quite a long time! I guess I decided to just live, watch, be amazed and then write my feelings later, when I was ready…
This was one of the most exciting parts of my trip, as it was in the city of my favorite rock band of all time, Queen, and I couldn’t wait to see it all!
After a very long flight from Los Angeles, crossing the Atlantic Ocean over the North Pole, we finally arrived at London’s Heathrow Airport. I was so glad that the Customs part to enter the U.K. wasn’t as traumatic as it was in Miami. But my friends helped me a lot, talking to the Customs officer, making him smile, and most important — they were taking care of me!
So, as soon as my passport was stamped, we caught a taxi and went to our “base camp” in London: the beautiful Kensington area, just a few feet from the Earls Court Tube station (by the way, local people call the subway as “The Tube” Even though the name you see on every station is “UNDERGROUND”).
London is a huge city. It’s impossible to see it all in just a couple of days, so my friends and I planned a “Queen” tour for the very next day, in which we would visit “Queen”- related places. We stayed in a hotel near Freddie Mercury’s house “Garden Lodge”. So, the same night we arrived in London, the first thing we did was to visit his famous house. I was so happy that it was a very small walk from our hotel to Freddie’s home, so it quickly became my favorite place to visit.
For me, encountering Freddie’s former house, where he lived, passed through his sickness, and died, was like visiting a temple. I heard so many touching stories and saw so many pictures of it in the past, that finding his street, house, and seeing it with my very own eyes was a surreal experience. It was very emotional for me.
It is a big house with a big garden. But you can’t see inside of it because it is surrounded by tall walls. Every wall is protected by electric fences, so no crazy fan can climb over it and go inside.
But the most important thing for fans is the wall on both sides of the main entrance. You can see acrylic dashboards completely written with messages to Freddie by fans from all over the world. It was late at night, so we left the place without writing any message at the wall (because I didn’t have an appropriate pen), but the next day we would start our “Queen” tour at the same place, write a loving message, and then move on to different London places.
So as planned, we woke up very early the next morning and started our “Queen” tour at Freddie’s house again. It looked beautiful in daylight, and I wrote a message in Spanish for the greatest rock singer ever. I took a big look at the walls, house, and street. This was truly something I wanted to keep forever in my memory. So finally, another dream come true.
But I didn’t want that to be my final visit to Freddie’s house, so the very next day before leaving our hotel and heading to our next adventure on the Isle of Wight, I woke up at 6:30, got my things ready, and at 7am, started walking (this time by myself), heading to Garden Lodge. It was a beautiful day, the sun was already shining, and I felt good.
I walked very slowly down our main Street, and after ten minutes, I arrived at the street of the Garden Lodge. I grabbed my tablet and started making a video, walking all the way from the beginning of the street until Freddie’s home. Just to help me preserve this memory.
The street is called Logan’s Place and is a very nice, small residential Street, with many houses and apartments. As you can see on the video, there were very few people on the street then, because it was too early. It was all quiet, and I could only hear the birds singing and the cars passing on other nearby streets. One of my concerns was not to upset the people living there, so I tried to walk slowly and not make much noise.
Then finally I arrived at Garden Lodge (2:22 on this video) and its brick walls. I started touching it as I was walking, just so hopefully, I could keep the feeling in my brain.
Then I got to the acrylic dashboards and there, in the middle, I could see, once again and for the last time, the iconic green door: the main entrance, with the big words “Garden Lodge”.
main entrance I could see flowers that someone put there the day before (probably another emotional fan like me). No people around, no other fans. I had this amazing view just to myself and I was already getting emotional. I looked again at my message in Spanish that I wrote the day before, and I couldn’t believe my eyes… once again.
I took pictures, and put in them a Chilean flag I had for a while, just to remind myself how far I traveled, and how long I waited for this very moment. I walked all the way to the end of the brick walls, and tried to make a mental image of every possible corner of that place. With a tear in my eye, I stared across the street, feeling calmer, and with respect, said a little prayer at this place that was like a temple for me.
I took some more pictures, some more small videos, and then said goodbye to Freddie’s Garden Lodge, praying to God and Freddie to help me a little on my musical career.
Then I walked away, looking constantly back behind me, as I was leaving the beautiful Logan’s Place Street, and I promised myself that someday, I would return when I would be in another step of my life.
Originally published at parallelmusicverse.blogspot.cl on July 11, 2016.