Thursday, 17 May 2012

Discovering the Covent Market Secret

Surprisingly I am back here after only two full days in old London town! Before we discuss any food, I must admit I am in love with the tube.  Not only is it super fun to be underground (yes, the things that amuse a country girl are bizarre), for something that is designed just like a rabbit warren, it is amazingly easy to use and the prepaid Oyster card system is brilliant.

The tube has been our main transport to get around to see what London has to offer.  So far we have done a lot of the ‘tourist’ things such as catching a double decker bus across London Bridge, walking across tower bridge to the tower of London, City Hall, toured St Paul’s Cathedral, watched changing with the guards at Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, toured Parliament House, Westminster Abbey & Covent Gardens to name a few!

I am a little in love with the panorama setting on my camera and this was taken on the tower bridge


St Paul’s Cathedral has been by far the highlight of the trip so far.  We spent a good couple of hours here before closing and I don’t think we saw even half of the place.  It is simply stunning and I would highly recommend this to any and everyone that visited London.  Not only is the history amazing but the building itself is breath taking.  It is disappointing that you are not allowed to take pictures inside to share with those that will unfortunately never witness this buildings beauty.
One thing I was expecting to really enjoy was the changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace. Well this was unexpectedly boring! For something that happens every day, I was not expecting thousands of people to be there, which meant when you are short ass like myself, you can hardly see a thing.  There was also a lot of construction works around the palace for the Queens Jubilee which basically ruined any photo opportunities of the place. 
With the sightseeing update out of the way, I am excited to move on to our food discovery at the Covent Gardens. We went here expecting to see some shopping stalls at the markets and find a nice little pub to have dinner, however we stumbled across the most amazing food market.  There was all kinds of food including kebabs, Indian curries, gourmet beef burgers, crepes, cakes & fudge.  We walked around for about 10 minutes as there were so many options I could not decide what to try.  The way they cook these main meals up are amazing with humongous woks and grills set up all over the place! After much deliberation I settled for a ‘lunch box’ which contained potatoes, salad, gherkins (which I politely declined) and a chicken kebab.  Now before I go on, what is the English obsession with gherkins?  Every single place we have eaten has an abundance of meals served with gherkins and people were ordering kebabs with gherkins only.  I am not sure if there is something we are missing out on back in Aus, but the amount of gherkins these people eat is mind boggling!  I don’t think I will be jumping on that bandwagon any time soon. 

After gobbling down my tasty and cheap 6 pound lunch box I couldn’t resist testing out a sweet treat.  I gave a brownie a whirl and it was well worth it.  Made out of pure chocolate, it was so chocolaty I had to have a break half way before I went into a sugar coma!  I must also make special mention of the nutella crepes that were available.  They were the most interesting to watch and on recommendation from my travel buddy, these were also super delicious.

After finishing our night with a glass of wine, it is now time to get some sleep before packing up and heading to another backpackers closer to the city tomorrow!
Night all, or Good Morning to all you Aussies xx

2 comments:

  1. That brownie looks delicious .. as for the the gherkin things ... aren't just for pregnant people? So glad your blogging, I can see ya gorgeous face, say hi to Sal for me ....

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  2. Can't believe you have a little blog chlo- so cute!!
    And I go to the Covent Garden food markets every Thursday so I can suggest some very good little treats for you! If you're ever around we should meet up there in my lunch break :) it does not get old that place!
    Enjoy your tour!x

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