A Later Start
Very tired this morning. It was 9:50 before I woke up – too late to catch the breakfast at the Euro (they stop serving at 9:30 on weekdays).
We got up, showered and got ready for the day. We walked up to Euston Road and had a quickie “box breakfast” at Leon. From there we made our way to King’s Cross rail station to get tickets for tomorrow’s trip to Canterbury.
Wading through the masses of people at King’s Cross, I reached the Ticket Office and purchased our train tickets. We then walked over to York Way, returning to the Coal Drops Yard, the scene of yesterday’s brief visit. Our objective today was to continue our walk down Regent’s Canal, ending up in Camden Market.
Walking Regent’s Canal
We slowly followed the winding path beside the canal, enjoying the scenery as we went along:
Lots of street art on the way:
Passing Camden Lock:
An Afternoon at Camden Market
At about 12:30 we reached our destination: Camden Market. The first stop was for tea at Black Sheep Coffee, as I hadn’t had my morning tea yet. From there we spent the next several hours wandering through Camden Market – what a place!! Fascinating stuff, but man was it packed with people – so hard to move around. I think Vince and I were the old farts in the crowd of all the late-teens and 20-somethings that day:
“Punk’s Not Dead”
I highly doubt these guys were serious, authentic hard-core punks. They were no doubt down from the burbs, going “punk for a day”, to pick up some extra cash from the tourists around the market; they made no bones about taking a bit of cash at any rate (£2 a photo!):
It was about 2:30 when we realized how hungry we were. We opted for lunch at a Camden Market restaurant called Epicurus – their website describes them as “a deliciously decadent Levantine spin on a traditional American diner, with Middle Eastern flavours and inspirations”. It was pretty good – Vince had the Sloppy Yossef, while I had the Epicurus Single Decker Burger. After fuelling up we felt recharged, so we continued our exploration of the MASSIVE Camden Market:
I bought a couple of fun posters at a funky shop and Vince bought a fun canvas bag with “Life is great, dogs make it better” on the side. We stopped at the Shake Shack in Camden Market; I wanted to try the much-vaunted milkshakes at said place – it really wasn’t all that. I had the Caramel shake and it was quite pedestrian (honestly, Harvey’s does a much better shake).
Chasing Amy
Camden Market has a love affair with Amy Wino… errr… Winehouse… Amy Winehouse.
While I was in one of the Market’s funky stores, the clerk told me to go check out the Amy mural. Amy Winehouse lived – and drank… a lot – in Camden Town. Her favourite pub was The Hawley Arms, below. Apparently she almost lived there:
The store clerk told me to go around the back of The Hawley Arms and I would see a massive mural of Amy, so I did…. and there it was:
There was also a statue of Amy in the middle of Camden Market:
Cyberdog
Camden Market was a pretty intense experience, at least it was on the day we were there. If you ever visit Camden Market and want to lose your last shred of sanity prior to leaving, I’d highly recommend a visit to Cyberdog. Cyberdog almost has to be seen to be believed.
So what is Cyberdog? It’s a trance music and cyber clothing retail chain, first created in 1994. Headquartered in Camden Market, it specializes in bright dance clothing, often featuring fluorescent colours and electronic components such as flashing lights. They also specialize in rave accessories such as glowsticks and other fluorescent items. Their rave-wear, ravetoys, shoes, jewelry, are divided into four categories: Kawaii, Neon Clubwear, 2090s (or Futuristic), and Cybertronic.
To get a feel for Cyberdog, crank up your volume then launch this video:
And that was only the lower floor… there was more above ground but it felt less of a rave cave that the lower floor:
Camden High Street
Late in the afternoon we decided we’d had enough of Camden Market and set out walking down Camden High Street, enjoying the intriguing storefronts and the funky feel of the neighbourhood. It was also nice to explore a part of London we’d not yet visited:
Outside the Camden Town Underground station we saw Gandalf the Grey… not sure what, or who, he was waiting for but he looked a little stressed:
A little further down Camden High Street was Lost Souls Pizza. I didn’t see the inverted vampire until I moved a little closer to the window…
Returning to Home Base
We followed Camden High Street until it hit Euston Road, then proceeded across Euston, back to the Euro Hotel. It was about 5:30 at this point; we really weren’t hungry just yet as we’d had such a late lunch, so we laid down and dozed off for a while.
We woke about 7:00 and went out to Marchmont Street for dinner. We settled on Slim Chickens in the Brunswick Centre – was not bad at all. We finished up at about 7:45 and made our way back to the Euro Hotel via Marchmont Street.
BUT!… we just had to stop in at Il Gelataio on Marchmont Street to try their gelato; it looked so good under the display case – we weren’t disappointed! Even Vince had a double scoop!
We got back to the hotel at about 8:15 and rested our tired feet. It had been another great day in the magical city of London. Off to bed at 9:45PM.
Today’s step count: 15,821
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