It's a grey, chilly English winter morning and I'm making my way through the busy concourse of Paddington Railway Station. I'm about to begin one of the most eye-opening travel tours of my life. I'm not about to hop on a train out of London; instead, I'm about to hop on one travelling underneath it.

On January 9 th, the London Underground turned 150. This is an important birthday, because the Tube was the first subterranean train system in the world. It was a miraculous feat of Victorian engineering when the first section of the "Metropolitan Railway" opened in Paddington in 1863 - using, incredibly, steam locomotives to travel the tunnels. It was an instant hit, carrying around 26,000 passengers a day.

Like most Londoners, I take the Underground for granted when it works smoothly, whizzing me miles across the city in a matter of minutes, and moan about it when it's overcrowded and delayed. So, in honour of its birthday, I decided it was time to pay homage to this labyrinthine arterial system that lies beneath my feet.

Michelle Buckley, from Insider London, a walking tours company, is my guide. We stand for a few minutes on the concourse, as Buckley explains how the first underground railway journey in history began here, 150 years ago.

"Congestion on London's road is not a modern phenomenon," she says, holding up a copy of a 19th-century engraving by Gustave Dore. This depicts an apocalyptic scene of a London street swarming with horse-drawn carts, omnibuses, pedestrians, traders and flocks of sheep being driven to market. In the 19th century, London's population was booming, growing from one million in 1800 to almost seven million by 1900.

Something needed to be done to get the city moving, and the man who came up with this "outrageous idea" of an underground transport system, Buckley tells me, was the solicitor Charles Pearson. Reactions to his proposals were mixed, with newspapers such as The Times deriding it as an absurd fantasy.

Buckley and I descend into the Tube and travel two stops on the District Line to Notting Hill Gate, an early Tube station that opened in 1868. Buckley points to its beautiful Victorian brick archways, enormous glazed roof and round glass-and-iron pendant lights above us. "They're the original 1868 lights," she says. Baker Street Tube, too, still has these beautiful curved globes hanging over the platforms.

Buckley's talk is a roll call of great entrepreneurial names who made the system happen, but it's the men who cared about the aesthetic experience of travelling on the Tube whom I find most inspiring. There are two characters who stand out in this story: Leslie Green and Frank Pick.

We take the Central line to Oxford Circus, where we emerge on the pavement by Argyll Street. There are two station buildings here, but they are dramatically different in style. One you would scarcely notice. The other, designed by Leslie Green in 1906, is quite different: a distinctive, arched construction covered in rich, oxblood-coloured terracotta tiling. Beautiful Arts and Crafts lettering proudly announces the station's name on the facade, as if it were a West End theatre or grand hotel. There are 27 of Green's stations dotted all over London that share this bold design and exotic, deep red colour. His work began to unify the look of the Tube, making the stations elegant, recognisable landmarks on busy city streets. These were ideas that would be enthusiastically carried forward by the Underground's visionary managing director, Frank Pick, in the 1920s and 1930s.

"Pick cared deeply about the design and look of the Tube; he believed that stations should be places to visit and admire, not just use," explains Buckley.

To see a fine example of station design under Pick's guidance, we travel south to Piccadilly Circus and emerge onto its magnificent circular ticket hallway. This space is pure Hollywood—a glamorous Art Deco design that is as elegant as it is functional and redolent of the Jazz Age, with soft lighting and smooth, pale stone surfaces. It was designed by Charles Holden in 1928, who built several notable Art Deco stations in London's suburbs.

Buckley points out the Deco treasures this station still possesses: orange columns and glass cylinder lights, an original clock, smart lettering on the walls, small, elegant shop booths (still in use) and a magnificent linear world clock encased in a handsome wood and glass case.

Pick not only commissioned great architects and artists (such as Jacob Epstein and Henry Moore) to create beautiful stations and artworks for the Tube, he also introduced its famous bullseye symbol, promoted the use of beautiful artistic poster-advertising that encouraged people to explore their city using the trains and introduced a universal typeface for all of the network's branding.

Londoners have a lot to thank him for. Nikolaus Pevsner, the great British architectural historian, described Pick in 1968 as "the greatest patron of the arts whom this century has so far produced in England, and indeed the ideal patron of our age". Not bad, really, for a railway manager.

In honour of the area's most famous son, Leytonstone Tube station is covered in a remarkable array of mosaics depicting scenes from Alfred Hitchcock films. They include Psycho, North by Northwest and The Birds.

The first, the greatest, the most innovative, the most visionary... the facts, figures and superlatives that I hear during my Tube tour never seem to end. And then there's the simple, ingenious design for which the Tube is most famous: the map, designed by Harry Beck. This iconic design—much copied, never bettered—was first approved and printed in 1933 (thank you, Mr Pick), and was an instant hit. The map isn't geographically accurate, but as any Londoner will tell you, it's how we all mentally imagine our city. If it's not on the map, we can't tell you where it is.

With a life of its own but always intertwined with the city above, the London Underground even has its own species of mosquito, which evolved from an above-ground species that moved to live in the tunnels during excavation in the 1850s.

Even the thick moquette fabric on the Central Line seats tells a story. Buckley makes me closely examine its apparently abstract blue pattern. As I gradually realise, it is a cunningly designed depiction of London's skyline .

It's just another example of incidental beauty that passes unnoticed by most travellers. Stop and look around you, though, and you'll be taken aback by how inspiring the Underground is in its scope, ambition and attention to detail. One rarely thinks of it as a romantic place, but what a lot of love has gone into it over the years. Happy Birthday London Underground.

这是一个典型的英格兰冬日的早晨，天空是灰白色的，空气中传来阵阵寒意，我穿行在人流如梭的帕丁顿铁路车站的中央大厅里。我将要踏上自己人生中最大开眼界的旅行之一。不过，我不是要乘上火车离开伦敦去旅行，而是要进行一次伦敦地下之旅。

今年的一月九日，伦敦地铁已经年满150岁了。这是一个意义重大的出生纪念日，因为伦敦地铁是全世界第一个地下铁路系统。1863年，“大都会铁路”的第一部分在帕丁顿开通，这项工程是维多利亚时代工程史上的奇迹，它不可思议地让蒸汽式机车在地下隧道里运行。这件事引起了极大的轰动，伦敦地下铁每天载着大约两万六千名乘客穿梭往来。

同大多数伦敦市民一样，地铁通畅运行的日子我把它视作理所应当，地铁伴着风声飕飕驶过，几分钟之内便可以载着我在城市里穿行好几英里，而地铁拥挤不堪或是延时晚点的时候，我又会抱怨起来。因此，在它的生日到来之际，我决定借此机会向这个躺在我脚下的迷宫般的地铁系统致以敬意。

米歇尔•巴克利是我的导游，她供职于徒步旅行公司“伦敦知情人”。我们在帕丁顿站的大厅里站了几分钟，巴克利为我介绍150年前第一个地下铁路之旅如何从这里开始。

“伦敦的道路拥堵不是现代才发生的事，”巴克利说着，举起了一件古斯塔夫•多雷的版画。画面描述了伦敦街道的可怕景象，街道上挤满了马车、公共汽车、行人、商人和被赶往市场的羊群。在19世纪，伦敦人口激增，到1900年，人口数量已经由1800年的一百万增长到将近七百万。

必须做一些事让这座城市运转起来，巴克利告诉我，提出建立地下交通系统这个“大胆”想法的人是一位律师，名叫查理斯•帕尔森。人们对他的提议反应不一，《泰晤士报》这样的报纸甚至还讽刺这个想法是一个荒诞的白日梦。

巴克利和我进入地铁通道，在区域线上乘坐了两站到达诺丁山门，诺丁山门是1868年开通的一座早期地铁站。巴克利指给我看车站内美丽的维多利亚式砖质拱门、巨大而光滑的屋顶和头顶上玻璃与铁混合制作的圆形吊灯。“这些都是1868年原装的吊灯”，她说。贝克街站台上也悬挂着这样曲线优美的球体。

巴克利提到了很多伟大的企业家，他们都为伦敦地铁的成功建造做出了贡献，但是最具启意义的还是那些关注地铁旅行的审美体验的人，其中有两个人贡献突出：莱斯利•格林和弗兰克•匹克。

我们坐上中央线到达牛津广场，来到安吉尔街的人行道上。这里有两座车站建筑，但是风格大相径庭。一座建筑其貌不扬，很难注意到。另一座则大不相同，由莱斯利•格林于1906年设计，该建筑极具特色，拱形结构，顶部由暗红色的陶瓦覆盖，大气奢华。建筑正面的站名采用优美的工艺美术字体，使得整座建筑看似一座西区剧院或是豪华酒店。整个伦敦市区内格林设计的地铁站中，有27座都应用了如此大胆而又独特的深红色。他的设计使地铁的外观开始统一起来，地铁站成为繁忙街道上优雅而醒目的地标。这些想法能够得到有力的实行都要归功于20世纪二三十年代富有远见的总经理弗兰克•匹克。

“匹克很在意地铁站的设计和外观，在他看来，地铁站应该是人们前来参观并赞叹的地方，而不是只具有使用价值。”巴克利解释道。

为了看一看匹克指导设计的车站，我们向南行来到皮卡迪利广场宏伟的圆形售票大厅。这里完全是好莱坞风格——充满魅力的装饰派艺术风格的设计，集优雅的外形与实用功能于一身，柔和的灯光配合质地光滑、颜色暗淡的石材表面，让人想起了爵士时代。该建筑由查理斯•霍顿于1928年设计，在伦敦郊区还有好几座他设计的装饰派艺术风格的建筑。巴克利指出了这座车站仍然保留的装饰艺术珍品：橙色圆柱和柱形灯、原装钟表、墙面上的精美字体、小巧而优雅的商货摊（仍在使用）以及由精美的木质和玻璃材料包装的线形世界时钟，十分大气壮观。

匹克不仅任命了著名的建筑师和艺术家（如雅各•爱普斯坦和亨利•摩尔）为伦敦地铁设计美丽的车站和艺术品，而且引入了著名的“靶心”标志，推动使用美丽的艺术化的海报宣传模式，鼓励人们乘坐地铁来发掘这座城市，并应用统一字体作为地铁系统的品牌化标志。

伦敦人需要为很多事感谢匹克。伟大的英国建筑史学家尼古拉斯•佩夫纳斯在1968年时称匹克是“本世纪英格兰最伟大的艺术赞助家，也是我们这个时代最理想的赞助家”。这个评价确实不赖，至少对于一个铁路管理者来说很不错。

雷顿斯通地铁站为了纪念该地区最著名的人物（阿尔弗雷德•希区柯克），整个地铁站内覆盖着一系列效果非凡的马赛克，描述的都是希区柯克电影中的场景，其中包括《精神病患者》、《谍影疑云》和《群鸟》。

“第一个，最伟大的，最具独创性的，最富远见的……”在我的地铁之旅中，这些事实、数据和最高级词汇，似乎听都听不完。伦敦地铁最著名的一个设计简单而具有独创性，那就是地铁地图，由哈里•贝克设计。这个具有标志性的设计——一直被模仿，但从未被超越——于1933年第一次被通过并印刷（还是要多谢匹克先生），并立刻备受关注。该地图不仅地理位置标注准确，而且所有的伦敦人一致认为，他们头脑中想象中的伦敦就是地图上的样子。如果不是印在地图上，伦敦人也很难告诉你究竟是在哪里。

伦敦地铁不仅有自己的生命系统，也和上面的城市息息相关，地铁里的蚊子就是证明。19世纪50年代，挖掘地铁时，地上的蚊子也转战地下，如今经过繁衍进化，形成了伦敦地铁独有的蚊子种类。

甚至中央线上厚厚的绒头织物的布料也有自己的故事。巴克利让我仔细观察座椅织物上抽象的蓝色图案，我渐渐发现，原来这图案被有心的人设计成了伦敦空中轮廓线的形状。 这只是平时被大多数游客忽略掉的地铁之美的又一个例子。停下脚步，四处瞧瞧，你就会惊讶于伦敦地铁多么富于创意，它包罗万象、雄心勃勃，而又如此精心细致。很少有人会把地铁看做一个浪漫的地方，但是多年以来，多少爱都注入到了这一方天地之中。伦敦地铁站，生日快乐！