Columbia Rd Flower Market

Columbia Road Flower Market.

You can often find me here on Sunday mornings mooching through all the gorgeous shabby chic garden accessories. The street market is a great place for drinking in the atmosphere. There are quite a few place to buy great coffee or more exotic street food. Look out for the deep fried chilli prawns, they are delicious!
Once you’ve had your fill of exotic flowers and plants you can nip down the road and have a wonderful Vietnamese lunch in one of the many cafes. They’re all good so just pick a busy one and enjoy!

Spitalfields Market

Just near Liverpool St station you’ll find the uber trendy, recently totally refurbished Spitalfields Market. My favourite time to visit is on a Sunday morning. Then there’s a real buzz of people, lots of unique craft and fashion, some ‘antique’ and vintage stalls and some interesting shops. It’s worth a visit most days but Sundays are a bit special.

On a week day don’t forget to stroll right round the outside of the market area as there are lots of interesting shops. If you are there on a Sunday you can still do a bit of window shopping at places like “Fairy Goth Mother”.

There are some nice places to lunch in Spitalfields too or you could try some of the excellent street food then just have a luxury coffee and cake in one of the many cafes.

The ones with pavement seating are ideal. You can sip your coffee while you watch the world go by, enjoy that favourite London pastime, celeb spotting, and plan other things to do in London.

I hesitate before providing a list because for some people there may be simply too many things to do in London sot the problem is more one of working out how to fit them all in if you’re only there for a short theatre break or weekend break. I guess the knack is to pick one or two top quality activities or visits for each day or part day, and then allow plenty of time in between for getting about and relaxation. If you must try and visit a museum, busy London shopping street, out of the way restaurant, art gallery, river trip and theatre show all in one day then the best thing to do is to make sure you are wearing comfortable shoes with soft soles because otherwise your feet are going to get mighty tired! But if you are looking for inspiration then here is a starter list of popular attractions and things to do which I think you’ll find worth considering.

Popular Things to do List

London Eye

Way out ahead is the simple pleasure of getting up high above the skyline for a spectacular view over central London courtesy of a London Eye flight. Its simply something that everybody has to do when they come to London, and if you’ve done it before, you might want to try a night flight or taking someone along who hasn’t had the pleasure yet.
As a bolt-on booking for theatre breaks there are a few options. The champagne flight sounds luxurious and of course that makes a difference as to who else is likely to be sharing your capsule, in other words quiet couples like yourselves rather than noisy families.

The London Eye Fast Track is also popular, cutting the waiting time down to just 15 minutes from checking in to boarding your capsule. When you book your theatre break and add on a London Eye Fast Track you get a booking confirmation number and will end up pre-booked for your day and time. Present this to the London Eye box office and you can walk onto the next free capsule. Without this you would have to queue up once to buy the tickets, then join an average forty minute queue for the flight.

Tate Modern

The enormous Bankside power station turned into one of the world’s premier modern art exhibition spaces at Tate Modern has become another of London’s iconic landmarks, situated right on the South bank of the river Thames. The building itself is worthy of a visit and if you like modern art that’s a bonus. Admission is free to the huge turbine hall and also the themed collections of twentieth century art genres but if there’s a visiting exhibition on one of the floors you can buy tickets there and then. True art buffs can then catch the Tate to Tate fast catamaran ferry upstream to Tate Britain.

Madame Tussauds

The old waxworks at Madame Tussauds has seen millions and millions of people through their doors since they first opened over 200 years ago, and now the modern experience there has also become just as popular as it ever was. It’s an emotion charged journey up close and personal with A-list celebrities, sporting legends, political heavyweights and notorious historical icons, reliving the times, events and moments that made the world talk about them. Gone are the museum-style ropes and poles so you really can get up close and personal with the mind bending lifelike sculptures.

Dim Sum

When you’re on a theatre break in London, eating times can become slightly out of synch from the normal routine, and you can end up feeling a bit peckish when it’s too late for lunch but also too early for dinner. Of course there are plenty of  restaurants, cafes and pubs serving food all afternoon but to make the most of London why not try going to Chinatown for Dim Sum?  Dim Sum are tasty little dishes such as fried dumplings, grilled pork buns or vegetable rolls which you can order as few or as many as you please to share between you. Chinatown or Soho is situated right next to or perhaps overlapping with London’s Theatreland and you will easily find plenty of Dim Sum restaurants to choose from. Best after 2.00pm and before 7.00pm

The Apple Store, Regent Street

Whether you are principally a Mac or a PC person, the famous Apple Store in Regent STreet is always worth a visit. The UK flagship Applestore is spacious and impressive with enormous high ceilings and a glass staircase leading to the showroom and genious bar section. Here you can get hands on advice about all the Apple products from ipods to Macs, software and professional music and video editing suites. Research your next laptop, buy a gift for your teenager back home or just check your email on one of the hundreds of demo machines without any hassle.

More things to do in London

I’m going to stop right there with this little list before I get carried away. For more things to do in London stay subscribed to our new Theatre Breaks Magazine