Being not a fan of lonely boring sundays, I set out once again to get to know my new home a bit better yesterday. My target this time was Chiswick in the west of London, which has been described to me as a quite nice area with one of the rare parks which are more than a bit of green with a pair of trees. And as the weather was nice, the area seemed perfect to be around.
Showing posts with label Exploring London. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Exploring London. Show all posts
Sunday, March 6, 2011
Saturday, February 5, 2011
Cemetary walk (Chelsea)
Labels:
Exploring London
Went for a walk where old time sleeps
holding its breath beside lively streets
venturing birds over tinny clouds
preying for red between the rows
humble greetings with a running nose
dark dressed folk enjoy feeding crows.
holding its breath beside lively streets
venturing birds over tinny clouds
preying for red between the rows
humble greetings with a running nose
dark dressed folk enjoy feeding crows.
Friday, February 4, 2011
Double day of departure (sadly / hopefully): Carine's Farewell at Ask Restaurant, The Cask, Marquis pubs (Pimlico)
Labels:
Exploring London,
Review
While the people of egypt are still hoping to overcome their opressive regime on this "day of departure" as it has been called, another day of farewell has come for me and my friends at work, albeit on a way smaller world-politic scale ;) Carine, one of my French collegues, is leaving for a great new job to Amsterdam this weekend, so we arranged a "dinner plus pub" evening yesterday to say goodbye appropriately.
We first went to an Italian chain restaurant, called "Ask" near Victoria. Thanks to a voucher Carine got from the Internet, we could get the half of the main dishes for free, which was perfect value for money, as my wine and calzone tasted well, but the amount would have been a bit mingy for the full price (and the food was arranged like a face, which I really hated :D). As the service was quite slow as well, I would not recommend the place, although waiters were friendly. But we still enjoyed our time a lot, and also Eric, whom we hadn't seen for one month, took time from flathunting with his wife to be there and there was also another new face, Gilles girlfriend Haruna, still a bit jet-lagged having just arrived a day ago from Washington D.C., where she studied.
So we took our time to "synchronize" and getting to know each other and of course presented Carine her farewell-present, a mug with some carefully selected and skillfully arranged portraits of important game industry representants on it (yes, that means Aurelie, Gilles and me, so she always remembers our beautiful faces between our visits in Amsterdam). We had a great time, so great we ended up as the only ones left and as eventually the waiters started to put up the chairs and "closing time" started to play we decided to grant the staff their evening rest.
Although it was around 11-ish by now, nobody really wanted to go home, so the map with the pubs of the area I printed out before came in handy. My favorite option was "The Cask", a smaller pub a bit off from the big tourist venues around Victoria station. Although a bit inconsiderable from the outside the interior did not let my expectations down. It had a nice atmosphere: a small room, not too bright light, felt very familial but still not to shabby, with cosy pillow-covered benches. The "menu" featured a selection of ales as well as the usual beer selection and as a special a range of Belgian and German beers. Just when I already had sat down and got ready to order my first ale, I discovered that there was only one problem about the place at this time: it had already had its last round.
Allthough there is no standard curfew in England anymore, still every pub which wants to serve alcohol has to buy a licence to do so. Up to that point, it's the same I knew from Germany (which is the reason why in German kiosks you're often not allowed to drink the beer you purchased there, but that only by the way). But to make things more complicated, in Britain there are different kinds of licences which enable pubs to serve alcohol until different hours - the more you pay the longer you serve. And as especially at small and local pubs the drinking crowd tends to go home early, an expensive licence often does not make any sense for them. So at those places last rounds tend to be served early, which is indicated by the typical bell ringing, followed by hectical business at the bar. Which is just what had happened at "The Cask", some time before we arrived.
So, wanting or not to, I waived goodbye to that warm place, not without promising to myself to come back some time for an earlier evening drink, and started to look out for alternatives. Fortunately the locals were happy to help, so in no time we found another pub in a side street which was by far not that great but at least left us time for one beer (les dames and Eric) / ale (me) / teeth-pulling sweet leechee liqueur with lemonade (Gilles). It was called something like "Marquis of ..." but I would not recommend it anyway, although having the local drunks suspiciously gazing upon us clear "outsiders" had its appeal :D
At twelve o'clock, with heavy hearts, we managed to say goodbye to Eric and Carine and embarked on our long journey to the Southwest, which for me should only end at half past one in my bed. How great that my alarm was only ringing at 7am this morning! Still, the evening was an adequate farewell to Carine and worth the tiredness I felt the whole day.
Ask Italian restaurant chain: http://www.askrestaurants.com/
The Cask Pub and kitchen, Pimlico: http://www.caskpubandkitchen.com/
We first went to an Italian chain restaurant, called "Ask" near Victoria. Thanks to a voucher Carine got from the Internet, we could get the half of the main dishes for free, which was perfect value for money, as my wine and calzone tasted well, but the amount would have been a bit mingy for the full price (and the food was arranged like a face, which I really hated :D). As the service was quite slow as well, I would not recommend the place, although waiters were friendly. But we still enjoyed our time a lot, and also Eric, whom we hadn't seen for one month, took time from flathunting with his wife to be there and there was also another new face, Gilles girlfriend Haruna, still a bit jet-lagged having just arrived a day ago from Washington D.C., where she studied.
So we took our time to "synchronize" and getting to know each other and of course presented Carine her farewell-present, a mug with some carefully selected and skillfully arranged portraits of important game industry representants on it (yes, that means Aurelie, Gilles and me, so she always remembers our beautiful faces between our visits in Amsterdam). We had a great time, so great we ended up as the only ones left and as eventually the waiters started to put up the chairs and "closing time" started to play we decided to grant the staff their evening rest.
Although it was around 11-ish by now, nobody really wanted to go home, so the map with the pubs of the area I printed out before came in handy. My favorite option was "The Cask", a smaller pub a bit off from the big tourist venues around Victoria station. Although a bit inconsiderable from the outside the interior did not let my expectations down. It had a nice atmosphere: a small room, not too bright light, felt very familial but still not to shabby, with cosy pillow-covered benches. The "menu" featured a selection of ales as well as the usual beer selection and as a special a range of Belgian and German beers. Just when I already had sat down and got ready to order my first ale, I discovered that there was only one problem about the place at this time: it had already had its last round.
Allthough there is no standard curfew in England anymore, still every pub which wants to serve alcohol has to buy a licence to do so. Up to that point, it's the same I knew from Germany (which is the reason why in German kiosks you're often not allowed to drink the beer you purchased there, but that only by the way). But to make things more complicated, in Britain there are different kinds of licences which enable pubs to serve alcohol until different hours - the more you pay the longer you serve. And as especially at small and local pubs the drinking crowd tends to go home early, an expensive licence often does not make any sense for them. So at those places last rounds tend to be served early, which is indicated by the typical bell ringing, followed by hectical business at the bar. Which is just what had happened at "The Cask", some time before we arrived.
So, wanting or not to, I waived goodbye to that warm place, not without promising to myself to come back some time for an earlier evening drink, and started to look out for alternatives. Fortunately the locals were happy to help, so in no time we found another pub in a side street which was by far not that great but at least left us time for one beer (les dames and Eric) / ale (me) / teeth-pulling sweet leechee liqueur with lemonade (Gilles). It was called something like "Marquis of ..." but I would not recommend it anyway, although having the local drunks suspiciously gazing upon us clear "outsiders" had its appeal :D
At twelve o'clock, with heavy hearts, we managed to say goodbye to Eric and Carine and embarked on our long journey to the Southwest, which for me should only end at half past one in my bed. How great that my alarm was only ringing at 7am this morning! Still, the evening was an adequate farewell to Carine and worth the tiredness I felt the whole day.
Ask Italian restaurant chain: http://www.askrestaurants.com/
The Cask Pub and kitchen, Pimlico: http://www.caskpubandkitchen.com/
Thursday, January 13, 2011
London Bridge pub crawl and short film festival
Labels:
Exploring London,
Movie
"Lose the winter blues with 10 days of noise and pictures" - the motto of the London short film festival instantly attracted my attention when Stefan sent me the link last week.
The last film festival I attended was some years ago, so I thought it couldn't hurt to go for the shorts again. The festival offers many different themed evenings on different themes, but we agreed on watching the documentary special, which took place on Tuesday. It was divided in two parts, the first one being an international special, the second one Britain-centred and from a more "personal perspective", what ever that was supposed to mean for a documentary. In spite of watching both with a total runtime of 200 minutes we chose to get tickets for the second part only and go for a pint first.
Of course, it didn't remain one. It's really impressive how many nice pubs there are to be found in this city and London Bridge area is of course no exception from this. We first stayed in a small one which was quite full already at six o'clock, so we only got bar stools. The good thing about it was however, that they were located right in front of the open fireplace, so we could take a look at the flames and warm ourselves while talking and of drinking ale. The second one was a bit bigger, brighter and stylisher and I forgot the name, although it had a very particular atmosphere, although a bit posh maybe. There was a staircase leading up to a gallery where you could sit and and take a sip, what we did.
So was there something more I wanted to write about? Ah, yes. The film festival! It took place in another nice venue, a small pub with two areas divided by a heavy brocade curtain. On the one side there was the "bar" area, on the other side the cinema, where the movies were shown.
The short films differed a bit in greatness, although most were quite good. The start was a bit unlucky with a 20-min-feature about people who restore old boats, but after that it got better with a non-documentary (some scenes were actually played by actors) which evolved around family members of prisoners. Another one told the stories of "good souls" in a poor area. The rest were about a woman who was into extreme sports and held her own wake before she was actually dead and two documentaries about buildings, one of which showed different personal viewpoints on a concrete "brutalist" living complex to be demolished soon. The other one an withered ruin on the Scottish coast which is used as a sort of gallery by a group of artists.
All in all, most movies were interesting and well-produced, although some did not earn the name "short movie" really. However, for the entry of 5 GBP it was a fun night and I'm thinking of visiting the ending celebrations on Sunday for another round of short movie pleasure :)
Links:
Shorts festival http://2011.shortfilms.org.uk/
The pub with the fireplace ;) http://www.lordclyde.com/index.php
The last film festival I attended was some years ago, so I thought it couldn't hurt to go for the shorts again. The festival offers many different themed evenings on different themes, but we agreed on watching the documentary special, which took place on Tuesday. It was divided in two parts, the first one being an international special, the second one Britain-centred and from a more "personal perspective", what ever that was supposed to mean for a documentary. In spite of watching both with a total runtime of 200 minutes we chose to get tickets for the second part only and go for a pint first.
Of course, it didn't remain one. It's really impressive how many nice pubs there are to be found in this city and London Bridge area is of course no exception from this. We first stayed in a small one which was quite full already at six o'clock, so we only got bar stools. The good thing about it was however, that they were located right in front of the open fireplace, so we could take a look at the flames and warm ourselves while talking and of drinking ale. The second one was a bit bigger, brighter and stylisher and I forgot the name, although it had a very particular atmosphere, although a bit posh maybe. There was a staircase leading up to a gallery where you could sit and and take a sip, what we did.
So was there something more I wanted to write about? Ah, yes. The film festival! It took place in another nice venue, a small pub with two areas divided by a heavy brocade curtain. On the one side there was the "bar" area, on the other side the cinema, where the movies were shown.
The short films differed a bit in greatness, although most were quite good. The start was a bit unlucky with a 20-min-feature about people who restore old boats, but after that it got better with a non-documentary (some scenes were actually played by actors) which evolved around family members of prisoners. Another one told the stories of "good souls" in a poor area. The rest were about a woman who was into extreme sports and held her own wake before she was actually dead and two documentaries about buildings, one of which showed different personal viewpoints on a concrete "brutalist" living complex to be demolished soon. The other one an withered ruin on the Scottish coast which is used as a sort of gallery by a group of artists.
All in all, most movies were interesting and well-produced, although some did not earn the name "short movie" really. However, for the entry of 5 GBP it was a fun night and I'm thinking of visiting the ending celebrations on Sunday for another round of short movie pleasure :)
Links:
Shorts festival http://2011.shortfilms.org.uk/
The pub with the fireplace ;) http://www.lordclyde.com/index.php
Sunday, January 9, 2011
A cold day in the sun (Visiting Greenwich Village)
Labels:
Exploring London
Last Sunday has been one of these precious, very rare days when the usual London atmosphere of fog and clouds lifted for once and the sun came out.Reason enough for me to spend the day outside and in the green. Considering I quite know Wimbledon Common by now and made the resolution to get to know more of London than the southwest, I decided to go and explore.
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