Wednesday 22 October 2008

A Perfect Saturday in London

Krista of Londonelicious has called for bloggers to blog their 'Perfect Saturday in London'. So here's mine.

I'm not much of an early riser (this here is the understatement of the year) but since I have a lot to fit in, we start at:

9:30am It will, of course be a perfectly sunny day. I like to walk; I do at least 3 miles a day, if not more. I leave the house and walk to Blackheath, a rather pleasant and tree-lined 40 min stroll. At Blackheath, I jump on the 108 to North Greenwich.

10:30am I arrive at the Peninsula Restaurant at the Holiday Inn, North Greenwich to join the masses for a dim sum breakfast / brunch. North Greenwich is a strange, deserted place full of new builds, the O2 and motorways. I swear I see tumbleweed roll past in the distance, but the restaurant takes me straight back to the dim sum places in Hong Kong. It's usually heaving and very noisy, often not an English word heard.

11:45am Sufficiently stuffed, I jump on the Jubilee line to London Bridge (15 mins) and walk to Borough Market. Batting aside the crowds, I grab a pint of mulled cider and 6 oysters. These are slurped / drank in the shadow of the church.

1pm Back to the overland at London Bridge to catch a Southeastern to Charing Cross (11 min). I walk past Trafalgar Square to the National Portrait Gallery (my favourite of London galleries I've been to so far) and have a potter around inside. A cup of over-priced coffee (you're not in London if you're not being ripped off) in the cafe to revive my mulled-cider-brain.

3:30pm Leaving the gallery, I then walk (25 min) down to Lanesborough Hotel for Afternoon Tea, more specifically the Belgravia Tea. I haven't been before, but it's been on the list for ages.

6pm Leaving the Lanesborough, I jump on the tube (30 mins) to Old Street. A few beers in The Reliance - they have Scrumpy Jack on tap. I like.

8pm Jump on the 205 to Tayyabbs (via an offie to pick up more beers for the inevitable queue). Lots of grilled lamb chops.

11pm I waddle off, home-bound. Or, more likely than not, we head to Catch on Kingsland Road for a boogie and I end up having to catch a miserable night bus. Wait - this is the perfect Saturday, right? In that case, I am chauffered home by a taxi.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

ok, here we go again! I think Tayyabs is a fine way to end the day - LAMB CHOPS!! Me also like Scrumpy Jack - maybe we should like it together at some point?!

Chris Pople said...

Yes, if you ever want to reenact this day, count me in.

Kavey said...

Sounds lovely. If it weren't for all that fit and healthy walking, I'd ask to tag along!

Anonymous said...

haha I like how you start in Blackheath and gravitate towards shoreditch and I start in Shoreditch and gravitate towards Blackheath - maybe we should meet for oysters and coffee in the middle! Actually oysters and coffee sounds wrong.

aforkfulofspaghetti said...

I think you'll be needing the taxi, for sure!

I'm going to have to get myself over to the Peninsula - first Browners, now you...