Karolina walks you through Limehouse

Tall, straight-backed and quiet until she is sure of her line, Karolina makes minimalism look like a decision rather than a lack of effort. Slim and 174 cm tall, she lets her black hair fall long and straight past her shoulders, and her brown eyes give the joke away a second before she says it. Her wardrobe runs to clean black, a white shirt with a sharp collar, one silver cuff. She owns very little jewellery, and every piece of it is the right one.

Poise and discretion are her public virtues; wit is her private pleasure. Her English is precise and dry, and she enjoys a guest who can keep up. Piano is a lifelong habit, and she still sits down to scales most mornings. Opera she attends as often as her diary allows, which is never quite often enough. Architecture is the other love. Give her a city block and she will tell you who designed it and what they got wrong.

In Limehouse she starts at St Anne's, Nicholas Hawksmoor's church, whose pale stone tower has watched ships come up the river for almost three hundred years. From there she walks you down to Limehouse Basin, where narrowboats sit beside glass apartment blocks, and explains why the contrast works. Supper follows on Narrow Street, somewhere with a river window. She talks less than you expect, and every sentence is worth having.

Karolina lives in Covent Garden, about twenty-five minutes away via Bank and the DLR, and weeknights suit her best; recital evenings need a few days' warning. The Limehouse page covers nearby hotels, the rates page shows every length, and booking takes your plan from there.