Walking. Gossip. Travel.

Category: London

  • London – Moon Under Water (Leicester Square)

    London – Moon Under Water (Leicester Square)

    We had several hours to kill before getting a train back to Norwich, so it seemed a sensible idea to get unhealthy amounts of coffee to ensure a wide awake approach to the rest of the day. There were, after all, several more pubs to get to.

    The Moon Under Water, which is what George Orwell described a perfect pub as being, has been in this central West End location on Leicester Square since 1992. CAMRA mention that it was formerly a steak club and it’s also the first Wetherspoons which opened in the West End, so it’s done really well to last for thirty years. It’s a long and narrow pub and when we visited it wasn’t easy to find a seat, we got rather fortunate to get a table right near to the back.

    Wetherspoons themselves have some history of this pub, noting:

    “This famous square was laid out in 1670 by Lord Leicester. The first house on the site of this pub was occupied, in turn, by a Lord Chancellor, two princes and the famous Scottish surgeon John Hunter. ‘Hunter’s House’ was demolished in 1892 and replaced by the present building.”

    I found this particularly interesting, as John Hunter was heavily involved in body snatching, a surgeon who didn’t ask any questions about where his bodies came from. His house here on Leicester Square was once used as his personal museum and he had a connected property at the rear of this house which was used as a dissecting house. That property was located on Castle Street, which has since been renamed Charing Cross Road.

    A chicken wrap, chips and unlimited coffee was something like £6.59, which given the location really isn’t too bad. The chicken was a little light (I think they’d used one chicken strip instead of two, although I can’t say that I dwelled unnecessarily long over this), but it all tasted perfectly fine and was sufficient. The visit was more about the coffee than expecting any fine cuisine, although this is the first Wetherspoons I’ve seen with only one coffee machine, space is just very limited.

    The service was efficient and polite, plates collected promptly and the pub environment was all clean and tidy. I have visited here before on a few occasions, but they were several years ago and I had forgotten the theatre posters which line the corridors to the toilets.

    I had a little look at TripAdvisor to amuse myself, and there were some marvellous reviews, such as:

    “We ordered chips and they came literally after 2 secs completely cold!!!”

    I’d highly doubt it took “literally two seconds” if I’m being honest, but who knows….

    Anyway, for those visiting central London and wanting a cheap and affordable option, with real ale and craft beer, there are many worse….

  • London – Greggs Stratford

    London – Greggs Stratford

    After we’d got off the Megabus from Norwich to London, there was one cultural highlight of London to visit, the Greggs at Stratford Westfield…..

    Cakes.

    And beautifully presented pastries.

    Greggs are giving free Walkers crisps to lots of people who have the Greggs App, which complemented my hot sausage roll beautifully. Friendly service and top quality products, what a quite marvellous way to start a weekend away…..

  • Norwich – Megabus to London

    Norwich – Megabus to London

    We needed to get to Heathrow cheaply and easily, but doing this in the morning is a challenging exercise to do cheaply on the trains. So, Megabus were the perfect option, costing around £7 per ticket to get from Norwich to Stratford in London. I’ve caught this bus many times and it’s a stress-free experience usually, with no need to print the tickets out, just showing the driver the e-mail order.

    Boarded first, so had a choice of the seats. Since there was no Donovan (excuse the Inbetweeners reference), we decided to sit at the back like some rebels….. It was a very smooth journey and Nathan’s alcoholic drinks the night before didn’t give him any sickness issues. We arrived into London safely at just before 10:00, having set off at 07:30, so the timing of the journey was good and as expected.

    The driving was professional, the bus was clean, the driver was professional and it was just a short walk to the Central Line at London Stratford underground station. All very lovely.

  • Croydon – Ibis Styles

    Croydon – Ibis Styles

    I’ve stayed at this hotel before as it’s a useful accommodation option which is located between Gatwick Airport and London. It’s also quite a quirky hotel, a cross between somewhere where clearly money has been spent and where shortcuts have also been taken.

    A sink pedestal which is the wrong shape for the sink and the newly painted ceiling in the bathroom was also badly flaking.

    The room itself though was clean and well presented, with a modern feel to it. The television seemed slightly small, but since I never turn them on, it didn’t make any difference to me. The coffee here is dreadful though, I don’t know where they’ve got their sachets from. I made a cup of coffee and had to immediately pour it down the sink after trying it.

    The welcome drink is generous in terms of the options and this was provided without my needing to ask for it. There was no welcome gift, but these are often missing in Ibis Styles and Ibis Hotels. The check-in process also required me to present ID, which was fine as I had my passport as I was coming back from Spain, but I’m not sure why they were doing this and it concerned me that they’ve been having problems. It’s also the first Accor Hotel in the UK that has sought to check my ID before, a habit they could perhaps abandon or explain.

    There was a choice of Becks or Stella in terms of the beer, both options which are, well, not exactly to my palate. The staff member sat for 75 seconds (yeah, I timed it as I’m dull like that) staring at his phone before he noticed me at the bar.

    The hotel clearly doesn’t have any Becks glasses, as that’s what I ordered and was poured. That’s a mispour, way too much head and no attempt to correct it. But, to be honest, it was more than enough Becks.

    The breakfast was included in the room rate and was entirely adequate. There’s no cooked breakfast, which is fine by me, but there was ham and cheese, along with muffins, pastries, fruit salads and yoghurt. The fruit salads were quite bland, as were some of the pastries, but the ham and cheese was of a decent quality. The hotel staff did get a complaint when I was there that there was no hot option, but taking the price point of the hotel into account, this doesn’t feel unreasonable to me.

    My healthy choices….

    I had a little read of their TripAdvisor reviews as I like a bit of drama.

    “Just left the hotel and I’m so upset needed a nice hot breakfast this morning to come to the restaurant and have hard bread and a little piece of cheese and ham and cereal was not what I needed”

    Do people really get “so upset” about this? Although, actually, since I get grumpy when I’m given a cold chicken bake at Greggs instead of a lovely hot one, I take their point….

    “I didn’t realise the rooms where like a attic the Ceiling was very low. I felt costa-phobic. I asked the reception if I can be moved they said all rooms are booked now. I couldn’t really sleep much as I felt anxious.”

    Costa-phobic? I quite like attic rooms, adds a bit of character, as long I don’t hit my head.

    Overall, I don’t entirely get this hotel, there are some excellent intentions and some mixed service standards from the staff. But, bearing in mind the price point, it’s hard to really complain, especially as the room was clean and the bed was comfortable.

  • British Airways (Berlin to Heathrow T5)

    Every time I fly back from Berlin Tegel I wonder whether it’ll be the last time I visit the airport, with its replacement seemingly having been nearly ready for nearly ten years. Tegel has long since been unable to comfortably cope with the volume of passengers and it feels crowded and uncomfortable.

    The boarding process is unusual as the BA lounge is landside, so then there’s a long queue for the security and border checks. Above is a photo of the queue for the flight at the next gate, it’s one of the few airports I can think of where the queues to board are within a five second walk of the terminal entrance.

    The British Airways check-in desks. It took over 40 minutes of queueing to board the aircraft, with no seating for those who needed it. Interestingly, or at least I was interested, my battery pack was examined by the security personnel for compliance, which has never happened before. It is a large battery pack at 20000mAh and I was quite impressed that it was checked, since it is only just under the allowable level.

    The aircraft was G-EUPE, an Airbus A319 that British Airways have operated since it came into service in 2000. I had a window exit row seat, which was sufficiently spacious and clean. It was also a busy flight and was at near capacity, although fortunately there didn’t seem as much pressure on the overhead lockers as usual. Then flight left around ten minutes late, but the captain gave updates and it seemed to be because there was a slight delay with getting everyone through the security process.

    The crew were professional and the buy-on-board (BOB) seemed to be popular, with a new menu having come out at the beginning of October. I still don’t think it’s a very innovative on-board menu, although my views on this are a bit irrelevant since I never buy anything on board British Airways flights anyway.

    The DHL truck had appropriate branding for where I had just flown from.

    The flight arrived into London Heathrow T5 at the expected time and the disembarkation process was efficient and timely. It took around twelve minutes from the airport doors opening to my leaving the terminal, allowing me to leave Heathrow in good time.

  • British Airways (Heathrow T5 to Berlin)

    Today’s expedition was to Berlin Tegel airport and, as usual, I arrived hopelessly early in the day to ensconce myself into the BA lounge. It was evident from the volume of rain hitting the roof of Heathrow T5 B Gates building that there were going to be some weather issues, although there were only a few cancellations and relatively minor delays.

    Fortunately, my flight was only delayed by around an hour, although there’s always the fear of a creeping delay where that one hour turns into two or three.

    Boarding was from gate A2 and I fail to understand why BA don’t make this process easier to understand. They did have separate queues for the different boarding groups, with groups 1 and 2 each having their own lane, and groups 3 to 5 were merged into one lane. But, in a piece of design brilliance, the lane for groups 3 to 5 was in front of groups 1 and 2 and so the others couldn’t be easily accessed. I’m not important enough for group 1, but I can sneak into group 2 and it took quite a determined staff member to get me, and some others, to the right place.

    There’s the aircraft at the end of the airbridge, which was registration G-EUOE, an Airbus A319 which British Airways have been using since it was manufactured in 2001.

    The aircraft was clean, although the crew had their usual challenge of trying to fit all the hand baggage into the overhead lockers. It’s the one disadvantage of exit row seats for me, having to engage in this whole overhead baggage game. This is a problem for me as my bag is relatively small, and usually there is someone with a ridiculously sized cabin bag who takes great exception to my small bag being in the lockers. So they try and shove it somewhere else. Always unsuccessfully I’d add.

    Waiting on the tarmac for departure, with the captain sounding professional and fitting the British Airways brand perfectly. I was also pleased to note that there was silence during the safety demonstration, it makes things feel so much calmer. Indeed, the whole flight seemed calm and the crew were efficient and polite.

    We landed around sixty minutes late, with the pilot being able to make up a few minutes of the delay en route. I flew to Berlin Tegel around five years ago and thought it’d likely be the last time there as operations are being moved to Berlin Brandenburg Airport. Unfortunately, this is currently one of the world’s most mocked projects, with an opening expected nearly one decade late. All of which means that Tegel is looking quite rickety and spending more money on it is pointless given that it will all be demolished soon.

    Anyway, this flight was a Reward Flight Saver (RFS) so it cost £17.50 plus 4,000 Avios points.

  • Shoreditch – Brewdog

    Having arrived into London Liverpool railway station, I had no shortage of food and drink options in the Spitalfields and Shoreditch area of the city. I’ve been converted to Brewdog now, after initially taking a slight dislike to them for their corporate practices (which seem to have  now been moderated somewhat), so I thought that the ten-minute walk to their Shoreditch location was worth it.

    Not particularly busy at 16:00 in the afternoon, although it did get busier later on. Lots of different seating styles, including bar stools, tables and booths. All clean as well, with the surfaces not being sticky, which is an irritating feature of some large pubs.

    The Brewdog beer fridge, with choices to take away, or for a premium, drink at the pub.

    The beer choice, but my preferred option of Zombie Cake had run out and the only other dark option was an imperial stout and I didn’t want that strong a beer.

    Half a pint of Dead Pony Club and a sample of Clockwork Tangerine. There are a lot of hops in the Dead Pony Club, which is fruity and citrusy. Not my preferred type of beer, but full of flavour and very drinkable. Incidentally, I didn’t think that the Clockwork Tangerine had quite the strength of tangerine that I was expecting, but it was also light and drinkable.

    The meat feast pizza, which was a slight challenge to eat as the ingredients slid off the base with some ease. But, food should sometimes be messy, so it’s all about the taste. Actually, it’s about the temperature as well, which was very hot and I was a bit too eager to get started so nearly burnt the top of my mouth.

    As a pizza, we’ve established it was served at a hot temperature, but the ingredients were decent, the base was light and the sauce rich and flavoursome.

    The manufacturers of Dalston chillies say that “there is no junk” in their products and I have to say, I liked it. Quite a powerful little kick without being stupidly hot, so this complemented the pizza well. Although I might have got a bit exuberant with the amount of the sauce I put on one piece of the pizza, which required another emergency drink of beer.

    It’s painfully clear from the customers that this is a very on-trend brand and it’s perfectly suited to Shoreditch. There’s a contemporary and modern feel to the whole proceedings, which is also coupled with excellent customer service.

    If I could find fault, it’s one of those locations where some of the staff seem to be doing the majority of the work, whilst some of the others were perhaps preening themselves just a little too much. But, all told, the surroundings are comfortable and everything was as I’d like it to be. Other than they needed more darker beer selections.

  • Heathrow T5

    I hadn’t realised that BA has introduced this into Heathrow T5, what could also perhaps be known as a job replacement programme. There were rows of manned check-in desks here once (well, last year), now just self-service kiosks for bag drop. Such is progress I suppose….

  • Heathrow T5 at Night

    I haven’t been at Heathrow T5 at night for some time and I had forgotten just how impressive a building it is. It has been open for twelve years now, but it still has a modern feel to it and it’s one of the more impressive structures when looked at from the side.

    Inside the terminal. I think that passengers are discouraged from staying in the terminal at night, instead it’s better to be at terminals 2 and 3 which have a more conducive environment for resting. T5 is big, empty and also quite cold….

    Looking down from the departures floor all the way down to arrivals, a reminder of just how big the building is.

  • Heathrow – Off to Luxembourg

    A quick breakfast in the BA lounge at Heathrow T3 early this morning, before my flight.

    Today I’m off to Luxembourg for the day, then getting the Flixbus to Bern. Given my past experiences with Flixbus, it’s anyone’s guess just whether I’ll actually reach Switzerland, but we’ll see. It’ll be an adventure.