Two weeks ago we sneaked away for a weekend in London to celebrate our fourth wedding anniversary. It was wonderful to explore parts of the city I’d never been to before, find some amazing restaurants and cafes, and just get to spend some quality time together making plans for the coming year. Here are a few photos…
Fiona’s London notes:
Visit Borough Market in the morning – buy a cup of coffee from Monmouth and spend lots of time wandering around the stalls, tasting all the samples and maybe go home with some cheese or pork pies or fudge…
Cross Tower Bridge (the view of the city from here is brilliant) and head for Brick Lane. We found an awesome food court set up in an old factory so we ate Venezuelan food for lunch which was delicious. I heard the Bagels here are great but we were already full.
Columbia Road in East London is full of fascinating little shops (go for the flower market on Sunday). We stayed in Dalston and just loved the whole Dalston/Hoxton area. If you’re up that way, go to Violet for your afternoon coffee and cake, and then head to the Prince George on Parkholme Road for a cider and great bar snacks (and a live folk band at the next table if you’re lucky like us!).
If you fancy brunch on an incredibly wet Sunday, head to Caravan in Islington. But arrive at opening time (10am) as it gets busy fast. The coffee is great and the food is ah-maz-ing. We both had the cornbread french toast with bacon, avocado and rocket.
And if you are craving a good Sunday roast to finish off your weekend, we can highly recommend The Pig & Butcher, also in Islington. We got an evening table and I had the lamb and Rasmus had the pork. They were cooked perfectly rare, the yorkshire puddings were the size of a hat, and they were served with creamed leeks of wonderfully-crunchy roast potatoes.
Since we’re talking food, you should go for what you can’t get in Luxembourg. Which means Lebanese food at Yalla Yalla for lunch one day in Soho, and late afternoon Spanish tapas (octopus anyone?) at Condesa just off Covent Garden.
What else should you do? Well, spend hours in every bookshop you pass (books!! in English!!!), get lunch at Le Pain Quotidien as a nod to your Brussels days (you became a couple in a PQ so they’re special places), wander the back roads getting lost and discovering new places, and take some long afternoon naps in your studio (because apparently you’re at the age where afternoon naps are what you love about rainy autumn holidays)…
