Craig Cross's Blog, page 19

London blog: Gabriel's Wharf

To be honest, I'm only reviewing this place because every other guidebook includes it, so I figured that you might miss it if it wasn't there. But it's just a little ramshackle square of shops on the Southbank. It's nothing special. I don't even bother popping in when I'm walking past. For some unknown reason everybody loves Gabriel's Wharf. Maybe it's because the shop fronts are all made out of wood? Maybe because they have painted the shop signs in bright pinks and blues? Maybe because...

London blog: St. John's Gate

Every now and then you'll be walking around London and come across a place that you never knew existed -- and St. John's Gate is one of those places. It looks like a castle gatehouse dropped in the middle of some shopping streets and office blocks. Whenever I see it I always wonder what London would have been like if we didn't knock half of it down. I've seen a million pictures and paintings of all the stuff we wasted (and all the buildings that the Germans bombed), and you can't help but...

London blog: St. Bartholomew-the-Great

It's nice and cold this morning. Everything is pin sharp and my face feels like it's been in the freezer for five minutes. Do you remember when you used to do sports at school (cross-country runs) and your fingertips would get so frozen that you couldn't do up your shirt buttons? Well, that is how I feel this morning. I'm off to St. Bartholomew-the-Great -- one of the prettiest churches in London. It's a bit of a bugger to find at the moment because they seem to be rebuilding the whole of...

London blog: Tower of London

hRI5fGRkum0They used to shut the gates when hordes of Londoners stormed the Byward Tower. They used to fire arrows at them and hurls rocks from the ballistas. Now they charge them twenty-five quid and give them a pair of headphones and a map. It's a lot easier to storm the Tower of London these days because they've bricked up Traitor's Gate and drained the moat. They can't fire arrows at us anymore because of health and safety. The only thing that remains the same is the horde of ugly...

London blog: Marathon journey by road, rail, sea & air

You're going to enjoy this one... we're going to do a loop of London on every kind of transport available: the bus, train, boat and cable car -- so that's the road, rail, sea and air. By the time you finish this tour you will be an expert on using London transport. First leg -- Thames Clipper from the London Eye to The O2 (45 mins) I am going to join you on this tour today -- so we can do it together -- but you'll have to excuse my gloom because it is absolutely tipping it down with rain....

London blog: Richmond Park

Richmond park is big. It's very big. In fact, it's huge. You could build a new town inside it and still have room left over for another one. People do sponsored runs around it and when they finish five days later their foot bones are showing through their shoes. I used to come here when I was younger to take a few photos on the expensive camera I got for Christmas. I used to have to drag it around (because it weighed about ten tonnes) in search of some deer, and then I'd sit there for three...

London blog: Comfort Inn, Westminster

If you want a cheap 3-star then this is the kind of place you're going to end up with. It's not great, but it's not rubbish either. Ideally you'd want to be living a bit closer to the centre of town to save on bus fares, but this is London, and for that you have to pay a premium. They call it the Comfort Inn Westminster on the website, but it feels more like Pimlico to me. "Westminster" makes it sound like it's next door to Big Ben, but it's actually five minutes away from Lambeth...

London blog: Geffrye Museum

This had better be good because it's quite a long walk. You have to get a tube train to Old Street and then traipse your way through an ugly bit of London for fifteen minutes. But when you finally arrive it's quite a nice surprise... because one minute you're on a busy main road and then all of a sudden it's peace and quiet in a countryside courtyard. All of the brown brick almshouses are wrapped around in ivy and it really is pretty. There are some big huge trees shading the lawn and it...

London blog: Hayward Gallery

The Hayward Gallery doesn't have a permanent art collection. What they do is devote the entire space to a single theme, or a single artist, and then swap it over for something else every few months. So whatever exhibition I describe to you now will have disappeared by the time that you arrive. But seeing as they only ever show stuff by contemporary artists whatever you see is probably going to be just as rubbish (I hate modern art!). Let me describe the current exhibition to you now, so you...

London blog: Shaftesbury Piccadilly West End

The problem with most 5-star hotels is there's too much pressure to be posh. You can't relax and have a walk around because you feel like you're on trial. You have to press your shirt and shine your shoes and straighten your tie for breakfast, and I hate all of that. I don't like people striking up a "how are you today, sir" conversation every time I get in the lift. It's all right if you're trying to impress somebody, but I'm not -- it's just me. (It's always just me.) And that's...