London Blitz: Part I

On Tuesday March 22, we took the bus to Catania airport and then got an EasyJet flight to London Gatwick.  We were able to buy a Visitor Oyster card at Gatwick and then got a Thameslink train to the London Bridge station for only 8£.  We hopped on the Tube and arrived at the Old Street stop, near our hotel.  We are staying at The Hoxton (Shoreditch) in the "Shoebox" room.  The Hoxton has been around since 2006, and set the pace for cool hotels in London's east end.  We are really enjoying hip Shoreditch.  Tuesday was a beautiful sunny day with a high of 12C.

The sign on the door to our hotel room

The ironing room on each floor

Buzzy lobby- all the time

There is a restaurant and coffee bar on main floor

Fireplace area in lobby

On our first night in London, we went for dinner with an old friend from Toronto, who has lived in London the last 20 plus years.  We went for a walk after dinner and he took us to see the beautifully renovated Savoy hotel.

Stompin' at the Savoy

Outside of the Savoy

Wednesday March 23 started cloudy and remained so the rest of the day.  We have not been in London for nine years and were amazed at all the changes.  There are more building cranes around London than in Toronto!  There are a lot of amazing looking buildings.  It is also clear that London is one of the most expensive cities in the world-- very difficult for other than the 1% to live in central London.

Buildings near our tube stop

Another new apartment building

We went to the nearby Shoreditch Grind, a highly rated coffee shop near the tube stop.  Great coffee- they also sell sandwiches and other food during the day.  Spoke to a barista who made some suggestions for our walk in the 'hood.  It was sticker shock to go from our one euro espresso in Sicily ($1.50 Canadian) to 2.20£ ($4.35 Canadian).  Yikes!

Shoreditch Grind

More buildings

We had decided to check out the 'hood in the late morning.  There is a very cool contemporary "shopping mall" made up of refitted shipping containers under the elevated Shoreditch High Street Overground station.  BoxPark was installed in 2011 and has a mix of high-street labels, like Keihls and Puma, but also has a number of independents and pop-ups.  There is a food area on the second floor.

Outside of BoxPark

Cool independent store

We then walked over to Redchurch Street, where there are a number of cool shops.   Allan (no longer Alonso as we are in an English speaking country) made a purchase at  Le Labo (Paris store).

Allan (not Alonso anymore) at Le Labo

I bought a very cool pair of pants at MK2UK (store label).

Outside of MK2UK

The Shoreditch area has a lot of unique graffiti.

Graffiti

We stopped at Franze and Evans, a buzzy cafe.  This turned out to be the best deal of the day.  Wonderfully fresh food and flavours.  It was no wonder that the place was full.  We shared a choice of three salads (good portions and tasty) and a bowl of wonderful vegetable soup.

Salads- squash, rice and chicken salad, kale and avocato

veg soup

Counter at cafe

Graffiti across the way

We also spent a lot of time talking to the owner of a very cool T-shirt shop called We Admire.  Allan and I both got cool T-shirts designed by a local designer with an interpretation of Miles Davis's Kind of Blue album.  We ordered the design and picked them up an hour later.  The owner had a long story about his relationship with the album, having heard it when he was a young boy.

We walked to our Tube stop, Old Street, where there was a Jamie Oliver Fifteen Pop-up selling goodies in the tube station.  There was also an independent coffee kiosk and a "beef broth" kiosk.

Jamie's Fifteen pop up in Old Street Tube station

We took the Tube to London Bridge Station and wandered through the wonderful Borough Market en route to the Tate Modern gallery.  Lots of purveyors of vegetables, cheese, fruit, meat and fish and baked goods.

Bread Ahead

Wild Garlic pesto etc.

Amazing fish store- prices were through the roof

Cauliflowers

Outside sign

More building and crane sightings on the Thames

Globe Theatre

Millennium Bridge and St. Pauls in the distance

We arrived at the Tate Modern, which has a new wing that will open in June of this year.  We went to see the excellent Alexander Calder (1898-1976): Performing Sculpture show.  We always marvel about how innovative Calder was in designing "mobiles" and other amazing works.

Outside of Tate Modern

Hercules and Lion 1928

Goldfish Bowl 1929 (done for his mother)

Medusa 1930

Josephine Baker

Black Widow 1948 (this piece usually hangs in the Institute of Architects of Brazil in Sao Paulo)

Calder having fun

We also checked out some of the wonderful permanent collection-- a wing called Media Networks explored some of the ways in which artists have responded to the impact of mass media and communications.  After the gallery, we continued our walk, crossing the river on the Blackfriars bridge, continuing on the Victoria Embankment to the Covent Gardens area.

More buildings

We passed a Paris jewellery shop advertising a sale with- "Sunny Days"!!

We ended up grabbing a very quick bite at Le Pain Quotidien as the play we were going to see started at 7:30 p.m. and we weren't sure how long it was going to run.  The food was good, but the prices higher than the Paris and New York branches of the restaurant.

London theatre is still the best. We saw Florian Zeller's The Father at the Duke of York's Theatre.  Zeller is a hot French award-winning writer and playwright ( b. 1979) and the play was told from an 80 year old's perspective as he suffers from dementia.  Kenneth Cranham played the father and Amanda Drew, the daughter.  There were a few other characters and the play dealt with parallel perceptions of his life and relationship with his daughter and her spouse/ or was he her new lover???  The play had a sell out season at another theatre and was back for only 38 performances this March.  It had five star reviews from 10 London papers.  It was excellent and reasonably priced.

Poster for play

We headed back to The Hox (as our Hotel is known) after the play.  Day 1 of our Blitz was over!