Little Venice and Camden

Time to catch up on the blogging....  I had hope to do a London Walks tour of Little Venice and Camden Loch last week but we had the whole "Fuel Dump" and diversion back to Dallas.  So for the next trip, since we were actually on time, I was able to make a visit to this part of the city.  My friend Kathy, who is a Raleigh based, was laying over on the same day so she came along.

Little Venice is part of the Maida Vale section of London, part of the district of Westminster.  The poet Robert Browning lived in the area in the 18060's and coined the name Little Venice for the area.  Now the canals are populated with houseboats and floating restaurants and shops.

There was a strange green pond scum around some parts of the canal.... must be a summer thing.  We stopped at a place called the Waterway for some beers.... being a Friday afternoon, it really started to fill up with people.

Next we made our way over to Camden, which can be accessed via the canals of Little Venice.  After spending too much time at the little waterside bar, we missed the last ferry and ended up on an extended tour of the London Underground thanks to a deceptive Tube worker.  A nice Australian finally pointed us in the right direction.

Camden, an inner city district in London, is one of the last holdouts of the alternative punk scene that swept the city in the 70's and early 80's and was home to punk rock music.  Until her death last week, Amy Winehouse lived in the area.

We had dinner at a place called Lockside Bar & Kitchen.  It had a nice outdoor seating area with a view of the Camden Lock.  According to the bartender, the burgers were "brilliant" and I have to say they were pretty good.  The french fries were also the best I have had in the U.K.

The next day, as we were leaving, the weather turned crappy, so we were lucky we had nice and mild weather for our excursion.