A suitcase redraws the map
The Underground map shows lines and stations. It says nothing about stairs, and in the middle of London that is the thing a traveller with a suitcase most needs to know. Many of the stations in Zone One are among the oldest and deepest on the network, reached by long escalators, short flights of steps between them, and passages that were dug a century ago with no thought of wheels. A case that rolls happily across an airport becomes a dead weight on the stairs at Leicester Square.
Transport for London publishes a separate step free guide, and it is worth looking at before you land. It distinguishes between stations that are step free from the street to the platform and those that are step free all the way on to the train, which is not always the same thing. What follows is the practical version for the middle of the zone: the stations that do the job cleanly, the ones that only appear to, and the arrival into Bloomsbury that catches out more visitors than any other.
The stations that do it cleanly
The Elizabeth line is the simplest answer. Its central stations were built new, with lifts from street to platform and level boarding on to the trains, and in Zone One that means Paddington, Bond Street, Tottenham Court Road, Farringdon and Liverpool Street. From Heathrow it is the obvious way into the middle of town with luggage, and at Bond Street and Tottenham Court Road it delivers you to the edge of Mayfair and Soho respectively without a single step.
Beyond the Elizabeth line, a handful of the older stations have been rebuilt with lifts. Tottenham Court Road now reaches its Central and Northern line platforms step free as well. Green Park, with its three lines, was given lifts over a decade ago and is the useful station for the hotels of Piccadilly and St James's. King's Cross St Pancras is step free throughout, which matters for anybody arriving on the Eurostar. Westminster, on the Jubilee line, and Victoria, after its long rebuilding, complete the list most travellers will need. Lifts do go out of service from time to time, so check the day's status before relying on any single one.
The ones that only look easier
Some stations have lifts that stop short of the whole job. Russell Square is the classic case, and it matters here because it is the station for the middle of Bloomsbury. The lifts carry you between the street and the lower level, but between the lifts and the platforms there is still a flight of stairs, and with a heavy case that flight feels a good deal longer than it looks.
Covent Garden runs on lifts alone, which sounds promising until you are standing in the evening queue for them behind half the audience of a musical. The alternative is a spiral stair of close to two hundred steps, which nobody should try with luggage. And the great interchanges of the West End, Oxford Circus, Piccadilly Circus, Leicester Square and Holborn among them, are escalators and fixed stairs from top to bottom, perfectly manageable with a small bag and exhausting with a large one.
Arriving in Bloomsbury with a case
The Piccadilly line runs directly from Heathrow to Russell Square without a change, and on the map it looks like the perfect route to a Bloomsbury hotel. With a suitcase it is not. The journey is long, the trains are often crowded through west London, and at the end of it is the staircase at Russell Square. The better route is the Elizabeth line to Tottenham Court Road, which is quicker, has room for luggage and ends at street level with no stairs at all.
From there the walk is flat and short. WC1B 3NN, on Great Russell Street, is about five minutes. WC1B 5BJ, beside the British Museum, is about ten. WC1B 5BE, on the east side of Russell Square, is twelve or so, and the only one where a taxi from the station might be worth it on a wet night. If you are coming in by Eurostar instead, King's Cross St Pancras is step free and the same Russell Square hotels are about a quarter of an hour away on level pavements, or a very short cab ride.
Travelling with company
For some guests the journey is the evening, or at least its first act. The travel companion booking covers exactly that: a companion who meets you at a station or a terminal, travels with you, or goes on with you to another city. An airport run carries a three hour minimum, £700, with the travelling counted inside it, and any fare beyond Zone 2 is written out in both directions in the same message as the fee, so nothing turns up later that you have not already seen.
Inside the zone, the choice of station decides the timing. The desk plans a meeting at Paddington, St Pancras or Tottenham Court Road very differently from one at a station that needs a queue for the lifts. Between seven and nine in particular the platforms beat the roads, as the note on the slowest two hours to cross Zone One explains, and a step free route on the train is almost always the quickest way to reach you.
Company for a travelling day
Some of the women on the list travel well and enjoy doing it. Milena travels whenever a week opens up and is better across a long day than a short one, which is the right way round for a journey. Danielle is entirely at home in Bloomsbury after seven, keeps a private list of the city's best reading rooms, and is the natural person to meet at a hotel near the British Museum. Thea is gentle, unhurried company, which after a long flight turns out to be worth more than almost anything else.
All three are on the curvaceous page of the index. Tell the desk the station, the time your train or flight is due and whether you have luggage, and it will suggest whoever can meet you there most easily.
Cross filed: most of the names in this piece also sit under curvaceous in the the index.