Sunday 5 April 2009

Little Venice to Camden - but not quite back again

Zero and I went out for the day yesterday, starting with Mass at St James Spanish Place, adjourning round the corner (with a few others who had been to Mass!) for tea and toast, and then heading for Warwick Avenue to start this walk. [The http://www.waterscape.com/things-to-do/walking/london-walks site has some other walks that can be downloaded].

The walk from Spanish Place to Warwick Avenue took in:


And Marylebone Station (to get on the Bakerloo line to Warwick Avenue). Not somewhere I had ever been before, and rather more pleasant an enviroment than some of the much larger London stations. Raided Marks and Spencers for sandwiches for lunch.



The walk along the Regent canal has some very pleasant spots, though one or two bits were a bit "untidy concrete". You do get a real sense of entering a "different world", seeing the narrow boats moored along the sides of the canal. It was a bit difficult to tell how many, but some of them are people's homes.

Arriving at Camden Lock saw an increase in the number of people ... and a decrease in the average age. As you get older, it does get more and more difficult trying to be trendy. The M&S sandwiches sitting beside the locks probably marked us out from those partaking of (less healthy?) fast food from the nearby market stalls.

I could not live in Primrose Hill, as there were no Italian restaurants and life without Spaghetti Carbonara is not life at all. The view from the top of the hill, though, is very worthwhile, and I kicked myself for not having a pair of binoculars with me. Recession or not, one of the features of the skyline looking south across the centre of London was the number of construction cranes.


As we headed back towards St John's Wood, someone had had enough (I still have to really understand females and shoes ... ).
Some more training is needed, I think, before we take on Santiago de Compostella .....

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Zero says
It was a most enjoyable walk especially as it was such a warm day.One of the boats had a fish sign on it and there is a Christian boating association.At Camden it was great to see such a lot of people enjoying the fine day. Joe, I met an older couple today at Mass who have done the walk a few times and they were more adventurous then us-they sampled food from several of the stalls at Camden.Who knows- someone may have taken a sneaky photo of the two with the M&S sarnies!
According to my "secret London" book there is a walk that covers areas mentioned in the Sherlock Holmes and Richard Hannay (John Buchan)stories.For anyone reading this you also pass lots of interesting Churches you can pop into.
As for my footwear it did hold out until later in the day and it was more suitable than the lady we saw climbing Primrose Hill in 4inch pink stiletto heels-I notice she removed them going down!Why didn't you take a photo?!