London Outings

[Marmora Man]

Where do you take "out of towners" to show off London to them?

Recent successes have been to shop (early) at Borough Market, buying the ingredients for supper while wandering around and then having a lunch / beer / wine somewhere along the South Bank and watching the street performers.

Columbia Road Flower Market on a Sunday morning is better - really crowded, fantastic plants and flowers, quirky shops and several good cafes for breakfast. Can be combined with a stop at a Brick Lane 24 hour bagel shop and Petticoat Lane market where all human life can be seen and heard.

Do you have recommendations for other outings that show the best of London without being standard tourist trail fodder.

[*Bob*]

If they're new to Laarndon, hitting the tourist trail is the way to go.

Passing a one thousand year-old fortress on the bus so you can spend the afternoon having your sleeve tugged as you pass by a hundred identikit Indian restaurants can often lead to disappointment.

Borough Market is 'the tourist trail' anyway, isn't it?

[Peckhamgatecrasher]

Apparently Deptford is the place to be.

[SeanMacGabhann]

* bob*

Its easy enough to be blase about the seemingly common experiences in london but to most out of towners MM'S itinerary is more interesting. Fed up as i am by the brick lane experience its still fairly intoxicating to someone from devon who has centuries old blah at every turn down there . .

Borough market is also a tourist destination but only to a fairly small number. . And its a working place. .

I would take them to a hill. . Greenwich in the south or primrose in the north. . It doesnt really matter how many other tourists are around. . The vista speaks for itself

[*Bob*]

Don't think that's what I'm saying, 'Gab.

I'm saying is that it's easy to be (more) blase about 'the tourist trail' when you live here then it is about the 'alternative, like, real London yeah?' stuff.. eg Tower of London - whatever - YAWN etc. However, the sight of an ancient fortress packed with, quite literally, amazing stuff, is 'quite impressive'.

Borough Market is packed full of tourists.. just a different kind of tourist.

[woofmarkthedog]

If you are already in town the Sir John Soanes museum is great at Lincons-in-field / Holborn it's free & properly mad.

[SeanMacGabhann]

No i get what you are saying. . Just that your take breaks down amongst anyone i have taken around

Last year for example, whether friends from new york or younger family from ireland. . Palaces, castles and parliament were all met with "meh" at best despite them asking for specifically those things. Thats what they knew about and wanted to see without knowing why. Taking the same people to a more unusual (for them) place had them far more excited

Maybe they had to do the first to enjoy the second. . I dunno

[Marmora Man]

For clarity the Brick Lane "experience" I was referring to was the Beigel Bake - here I hadn't particularly thought about the curry lane end of the area.

Also the Columbia Flowqer Market has more than flowers - you tend also to see / meet clubbers exiting the saturday night parties and looking for coffee & carbohydrates - the two six foot plus Australian muscular transvestite's in mini skirts we met last time were something of an eye opener for friends from a small village in Scotland - as was the back chat between them and the market traders.

Agree lots of tourists visit Borough market to gawp -= but it's still an enjoyable shopping experience - maybe not entirely unique to London - but fun, particularly if you get there before 10.30.

I was hoping readers would suggesty other options - I like the "visit a hill" idea - seeing London spread out below is always inspiring.

[gallinello]

Are the guests active and fully mobile?

If so, and the idea of the hill-top vista appeals, why not take a fantastic walk from Archway Station up Highgate Hill, Swains Lane and Highgate Cemetery ("All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses, his real conditions of life, ..."), Highgate High Street and then walk down to Hampstead Heath, along Highgate West Hill, finishing up at Parliament Hill for, what I would consider, the finest view of the metropolis.

[????]

gallinello Wrote:

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> Are the guests active and fully mobile?

>

> If so, and the idea of the hill-top vista appeals,

> why not take a fantastic walk from Archway Station

> up Highgate Hill, Swains Lane and Highgate

> Cemetery ("All that is solid melts into air, all

> that is holy is profaned, and man is at last

> compelled to face with sober senses, his real

> conditions of life, ..."), Highgate High Street

> and then walk down to Hampstead Heath, along

> Highgate West Hill, finishing up at Parliament

> Hill for, what I would consider, the finest view

> of the metropolis.

Yup, with the added pleaure of pissing on Karl Marx's grave that's not too bad

[gallinello]

How intelligent, and such wit!

[????]

It wasn't meant to be funny

[Jeremy]

Nunhead. Fish mongers + bakery + cemetary. Photo opportunities on the picturesque village green, pint in the Pyrotechnist's Arms.

Then walk southwards to check out the famous SE15/SE22 border cutting through Peckham Rye. Pose with feet either side of the boundry line - more photo opportunities.

Maybe save Deptford and New Cross for day 2.

[bigbadwolf]

So Marmora Man, I take it you're opting for the 'real' experience.

Forget taking them to Borough market as when they get home and are ready to stir up a bit of envy amongst the other provincial cannibals they'll be met with a sorely disappointing "been there, done that" retort. Instead, take them to East Street Market where they'll be serenaded by tipsy Irish 'poets of the road' with a parting "Gad bless ya sor". Introduce them to some of the towns more pungent marijuana that will encourage an appetite that can be satisfied by one of the many food stalls that may or may not cause them to suffer a barbaric case of diarrhoea or even Typhoid.

So you want lunch accompanied by street performers as well do you. Now most would immediately compliment this with a visit to Covent garden or perhaps Camden. I say throw caution to the wind and go for a picnic in the Kings Cross area. In doing this you'll be able to watch all sorts of 'performers' perform a wide range and often unchristian 'tricks' in exchange for cash. You may even be able to score some smack for your Scotish chums, they'll be made to feel right at home.

Now for the hill. Many would choose Honor Oak or Primrose hill, I say think outside the box. Take them to Mount Pleasant (it's a hill of sorts) whereby you can regail them with the tales of woe and frustration that the Royal mail have brought upon the citizens of the Capital are now being out sourced to cowboys such Initial City Link etc..

I hope you find my itinerary useful MM, after all.....it is the 'real London' you're looking for.

Safe journey.

[Marmora Man]

gallinello Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> If so, and the idea of the hill-top vista appeals,

> why not take a fantastic walk from Archway Station

> up Highgate Hill, Swains Lane and Highgate

> Cemetery ("All that is solid melts into air, all

> that is holy is profaned, and man is at last

> compelled to face with sober senses, his real

> conditions of life, ..."), Highgate High Street

> and then walk down to Hampstead Heath, along

> Highgate West Hill, finishing up at Parliament

> Hill for, what I would consider, the finest view

> of the metropolis.

Thanks - Sounds good - tho' contrary to Quids recommendation I'd probably just acknowledge George Eliot's and MIchael Faraday's graves.

[bigbadwolf]

Oh well that's just bloody charming isn't it Marmora Man! I go to all that effort and you just toss it aside like it's a copy of the daily mail. That's gratitude for you.

I'm disgusted with you MM, disgusted!

[Marmora Man]

BBW - thanks but I did my bit living the gritty London life in Green Lane N. London - prefer the quainter end of life now.

[PeckhamRose]

I throw my guests on the back of the motorcycle as it really is the only way to see London from the back of a bike. I ride them round the isle of Dogs and to Mudchute City farm and then back under the tunnel to Stave Hill, from the top of which are fabulous views. Then a run over Tower Bridge and through the City and a stop at the base of the Gherkin and a stroll round Lloyds and Willis Buildings, and then back on the bike and through the City and St pauls obviously, the Inns of Court and then north of Oxford Street and BT Tower (Fitzrovia) and then down to Hyde Park and stop at the Serpentine, then down to Chelsea, Worlds End, then over to battersea Park, and back home for tea. Sometimes we'll start further east at the City Airport. Sometimes not. Depends. I was thinking of starting a business taking people round London whose partners were on business in London and they had spare time so i could take them around. I know London well and it would be fun, but I am not an entrepreneur and I couldn't be arsed.

If any of you lot would like me to take you round though, I'd be happy to oblige.

We could discuss recompense another time....

[woofmarkthedog]

Take them to Croydon, it's the Manhattan of London.

They will never bother you again I promise.

[PeckhamRose]

You have kinda missed the point.

I ENJOY doing this and taking my friends and visitors from UK and rest of world on my bike round London!

Seriously, anyone fancy this ride? One afternoon in August I would love to take someone for such a ride for two or 3 hours.

Marmora Man? Giggirl? Bellenden Belle? Huggers? D Carnell? PGC?

[Peckhamgatecrasher]

I wish I could, but am an abject coward and would have an attack of the vapours.

[bigbadwolf]

Marmora Man Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> BBW - thanks but I did my bit living the gritty

> London life in Green Lane N. London - prefer the

> quainter end of life now.

Gritty London life? Green lane?

Come off it. I don't think having to put up with a load of Jews and Turks squabling over who has delivery access that day constitutes as 'gritty London life. You should've been in my shoes. I was brought up in the decade that first saw the Mac 10 'spray n pray' machine pistol and fully tinted out windows arrive on our shores. Very dark days (especially if you were in a tinted vehicle) compared to when Solomon and Stavos were bickering over who could park on the pavement.

[woofmarkthedog]

PeckhamRose Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> You have kinda missed the point.

> I ENJOY doing this and taking my friends and

> visitors from UK and rest of world on my bike

> round London!

> Seriously, anyone fancy this ride? One afternoon

> in August I would love to take someone for such a

> ride for two or 3 hours.

> Marmora Man? Giggirl? Bellenden Belle? Huggers?

> D Carnell? PGC?

---------------------------------------------------

What bike do you have ?

Buell 1125R ?

Ducati 11988s or 1098R Bayliss Ltd edition ?

Honda C90+ pizza boy top box?

It matters you know.....!

W**F

[bigbadwolf]

Yeah come on PR. I bet you couldn't beat me in a race...Yamaha R1 in case you were wondering. I hear Woof's Pastel coloured Vespa got burnt off at the lights by Stephen Hawking.

[*Bob*]

I do admire the panache of London's brave supersports bike owners.

Hunched over the clocks in full racing crouch.

Always the first to get away at the lights.

Always the first to arrive at the next set of lights - fifty yards down the road.