A long weekend in London

It’s been a while since me and Mathilde have spent a weekend in London. So since I had another work-related trip to the U.K. coming up, we decided to take the opportunity to combine it with a long weekend in London (it fit in nicely since Monday was a bank holiday in England). And, before you ask, yes it was a complete coincidence that our visit coincided with “the big wedding” (we didn’t get invitations…).

We booked a nice hotel near the Tower of London, which is a pretty good base for exploring London (well, it would’ve been, except that the Circle and District lines were shut all the way up from Embankment to Tower Hill tube station…). But, aside from that, no complaints at all about the hotel.

I joined Mathilde in Embankment, having caught the Heathrow Express to Paddington and then the tube for a bit of shopping. After checking into our hotel, it was time for a bit of dinner. We decided to head down to Farringdon (no particular reason – but I had a recollection it’s a pretty good area for bars, pubs and restaurants). Farringdon was oddly enough pretty quiet this particular Friday (perhaps most Londoners had left town due to the long weekend?), but we eventually found a nice and lively little Belgian pub called Dovetail (although funnily enough the bar staff was all Portuguese – that’s London for you I suppose). A few Belgian beers and some tasty burgers later, we headed back to the hotel, our appetites sated…

The next day, we decided to walk down to Borough market down in Southwark. It was a lovely walk, especially since the sun was out all day, taking in Tower Bridge, the Tower of London, the Belfast, and all the other big Thames sights… Borough market is a pretty cool place, where they sell everything your heart might desire to do with food and drink. We contented ourselves with a couple of vegetable drinks (what’s happening to me??) and some rather delicious brownies…

From there we made our way to Tate Modern, where we strolled around for a while (the cool thing about Tate modern is that it’s free – like a lot of London museums).

We then took the wobbly bridge (a.k.a. the Millenium Bridge across the Thames down to Saint-Paul’s cathedral (impressive as ever, with its huge dome).Our “London rediscovery tour” continued in Covent Garden, where we checked out the street performers, trying to find a cheap place to eat. Mission impossible, obviously. We ended up buying salads and sandwiches in Marks and Spencer’s, and picnicking on the street, basking in the sunlight. After walking around a bit more around Covent Garden, we headed back to the hotel, to get ready for the evening’s festivities.

The plan was to meet up at Arch1 bar in Waterloo (it’s a pretty handy bar to meet up for people coming from Guildford/Farnborough – so has turned out to be a bit of a standard place to meet up). We had a pretty good turnup – apart from the usual suspects (Phil, Sinhung and Nick), we had a couple of Nokians (Kate, Louise) as well as Emilie, Adrian and his new girlfriend Nathalie, as well as Simo and Zuzi (finally I met her as well!). After a few beers in Arch1, we made our way to our next stop – Las Iguanas (not a very original choice I’ll admit – but the place is good fun and they can handle big groups). Some Latin food and lots of cocktails and other drinks later, we made our way back to the hotel to catch a bit of sleep, to get ready for the next day’s hectic program.

On Sunday, the plan was to meet up with Manue & Marie in Little Venice, where they had a river boat festival. Good choice of program, especially with the great weather that still persisted. Little Venice is one of my favorite parts of London, a lovely, leafy part of London to walk around. The riverboats were good fun, and it was of course great to meet up with our two French lady friends again. Emmanuelle has relocated to Essex, where she is running her own translation “business”, whereas Marie (Mathilde’s ex-colleague) is still teaching at Tormead High School.

From Little Venice, we made our way along Regent’s canal up towards Camden Lock. Camden is one of my favorite parts of London, where I’ve not been for absolute ages. Camden is of course mostly known for its market – which was founded in 1974 as a crafts market. Camden market is the most “alternative” of all the London markets, and in spite of the fact that it’s become quite commercial over the years (a tell-tale sign of this are the “no photos” signs present in a lot of the shops), but it’s still a pretty cool and quirky place to walk around.

After a quick lunch in one of the local Camden eateries (a rather original and charming place), and a bit more shopping at the market, we said our good-byes and 0headed off.

For the evening, we’d booked tickets for the Globe. Now, theatre doesn’t get any more English or traditional than an evening at the Globe. Actually, it’s a recreation of the original theatre (which was closed in 1643), where The Lord Chamberlain's Men (the theatre company Shakespeare worked for most of his life) performed. Basically it’s an amphitheatre shaped open-air theatre, with a large open area in the middle, where most of the spectators stand. The rest of the spectators sit on the stands. The play this particular night was “All’s well that ends well” – one of Shakespeare’s less famous plays. I have to say it was a fantastic experience. The atmosphere was just great – I think it’s greatly helped by the layout of the theatre and the fact that you get to be so close to the actors. Shakespeare’s verbal jousting was sometimes a bit sophisticated for us, but we were able to follow the story, and a lot of the jokes aren’t all that subtle, to be honest. A great experience – and for the meager price of 5 quid each (that doesn’t buy you a lot in London).

We finished off the night with dinner at Pizza Express. Not too bad, but I think we had better value for money when it comes to pizza in Campania recently…

The next day it was time for Mathilde to head back to France. I saw her off at Saint-Pancras station, from where she took her train to Luton. Having said my bye-byes to Mathilde, I made my way to Regents park, for a bit of ornithology photography (need to use that 300mm lens for something, after all!). Then it was time for my next rendez-vous in Marlybourne, I was meeting up with Tiger-Dan, his wife and little Alexander for lunch. I haven’t seen Dan for ages (the last time must’ve been in Nice about 4 years ago), and I had never met his wife nor little Alexander. So it was great to catch up with him again… Adrian also joined up.

One thing you which you may or may not have noted in my musings about London is that I had not so far been to a single proper English pub (the Belgian pub on Friday, or Arch1 just don’t count). So to make up for this abnormality I had summoned a few drinking buddies for a bit of a “traditional English pub crawl”. Finally, Samy, Ed, Phil and Esa joined me for the adventure. We started in a nice enough drinking hole across the street from Southwark tube station, from where we made our way to The George, a real London classic pub. It is a real historical institution, dating at least as far back as 1543 – it is currently owned by the National Trust. It’s a great little pub, with low doorways, dark interiors, sloping floors, walls and roofs. Just a place full of character, basically.

A couple of pints later, we stumbled onwards to Wapping. The drinking establishment we selected here The Prospect of Whitby, were we also decided to have dinner. It’s a great little pub, about as typical and traditional as they get. An added bonus is the nice views over the Thames. I like the hanging noose on one of the terraces – perhaps a reference to Judge Jeffreys, a.k.a. the Hanging Judge? He was apparently one of the regular customers here... (it was rather an unsavory place back in the old days). Obviously we’re all getting a bit old, since we were pretty much finished by this 3rd pub, and had to make our ways back home…

A great finish to a great London weekend!