The other Camden Town, the cool one
**11AM. A TEMPLE OF COFFEE (WITHOUT WIFI) **
On weekends you can't walk (don't believe it on a daily basis either), but the trick is start the tour on the other side . That is: get off the subway Camden Road and continue, following the train tracks, to the station Kentish Town West . On the way you come across Doopie Coffee Warehouse , where the coffee fashion has already arrived or the umpteenth modern trend that consists of filter coffee with manual coffee makers and then paint kittens on cappuccino milk (they call it latte-art). But in this cute coffee shop, Except for the detail of the wifi, they have almost everything we like: it is a small coffee temple, with bags of beans, packages of fresh coffee and accessories to prepare it, as well as handsome waiters and pretty magazines to browse with breakfast.
12PM. BEER ON THE TRAIN TRACKS
The best things in London go under a bridge . Go to Kentish Town West Station, where the Camden Town Brewery has been set up. Under the arches of the railway tracks, its founders began to produce beer, the Camden Hell, in 2010 ; later, they opened a bar right next door, to offer it first hand to the clientele. They don't open on Sundays, so if you want to take a tour to see how they make it, check and book on their calendar of events, which they organize for 12 pounds every Thursday.
The neighborhood beer
1:00 p.m. THE CULTURAL CENTER AND HISTORICAL BUILDING OF THE NEIGHBORHOOD
The owners of the factory send us to ** Roundhouse , on Chalk Farm Road,** an old train station that when it got old was converted into a liquor store and, in the 60s, into a cultural center where they passed Jimi Hendrix, the Sex Pistols and The Doors among others . Completely renovated in 2000, the building is still active today (there are concerts, theater, courses, monologues and artistic installations) and its restaurant boasts of having many stars in Time Out, appearing in the Michelin guide and being one of the favorites among the residents of Camden.
The best artists pass through here
It's true: on any given day there you'll see everything from business meetings to neighborhood ladies having wine, but not a trace of tourist meat. Is named Made in Camden , they serve English food, they prick The Velvet Underground, The Clash and Queens of the Stone Age (extra point for them), it is full of posters of all the concerts that have been there (which at this point are not few) and, as everything stays at home, the beer they throw is the Camden Hell. Another point for them.
Made in Camden
2:00 p.m. SEE ALL OF LONDON FROM A HILL
Around the theater and up Regent's Park Road - very cute and decent street - you get to Primrose Hill . Here there are motivated tourists (for example, groups of retirees), because the ascent to the mountain is not particularly easy. But going up is worth it: there are the best views of the crazy london skyline and of those skyscrapers that grow like mushrooms, like enormous mushrooms, in the center of the city. Laugh at them, it's better on the hill.
Primrose Hill
3:00 p.m. tacky shops and scrounging at street food stalls
To the war. It has appeared half a million times approx. on your Facebook, in the albums of “London Calling” that your friends hang up when they return from their trips to London: there are some Giant converse and another series of elements coming out of the facades , colorful buildings, souvenir shops, piercing shops, spiked necklaces, leopard leggings and flea market t-shirts, phosphorescent clothes, very loud music and a Spaniard on every corner. You know it by heart, because if you haven't been told about it, you've seen it on Callejeros Viajeros. It's Camden Market: the most popular market of all London. It's huge, a little stress **(“vibrant”, they will say on TV) ** and 80% of what they sell you can find in other stalls in any market in the world. But it's so anti-cute that it will end up being your favorite.
The classic is to meander between the food stalls, try a little of everything - scrounging - of what the vendors offer you and end up taking a little cardboard box to sit down to taste it at one of the common tables in the area. As in the rest of the street markets of the city ( Brick Lane is another hotspot to keep in mind ) there are to choose from: Polish, Turkish, Pakistani, Argentinian, Thai, Indian food and even a giant paella pan full of rice with things. Spain came to Camden long ago.
Camden Market
4:00 p.m. CAME OVER THE CANAL
pass coffee, that you already had this morning and after the spicy food from the market your mouth burns. On top of the bridge beautiful things also happen: any sunny day, in addition to the tourists , half of London will make a pilgrimage to have a glass of wine on the Regents Canal (we adore you channel) , right on the side that runs alongside the Camden Lock Bridge.
A wine on Regents Canal
**17:00 PM. SINGAPORE AND ROOFTOP (AND JACUZZIS) **
The old stables are one of the more interesting areas of the market or at least with more original products and not copies of copies of copies of typical trail shirts. Their rooftop is my favorite for sunset. Not only because from here you can see – oh – the sun go down, but because there is live music, a nice 2-for-1 beer and because, for some unknown reason, has a jacuzzi planted in the middle. Some customers wear their bikinis to drink beer inside . The space is small, but it is part of the Proud Camden pub – another one of those classics that the neighbors recommend.
Jacuzzi and disco... Little more could you ask for
7:00 p.m. IN LONDON YOU EAT WELL. REALLY.
Burgers! Your Spanish friends also fancy some hamburgers, someone has told them that the hamburger does not have to be Mc Donald's quality and it turns out that they prepare them very well in London. The most 'gourmet' are inside the stable: at Honest Burgers, a small chain with a shop planted in every cool neighborhood in the city, from Soho to Portobello to Brixton (just where your London friends told you things were starting to “happen”). The one in Camden is also in the middle of the barn (the bathroom is, in fact, shared for the whole barn) and with a piano in the background, they cook them, you know, with special bread, hand-cut potatoes and in a chicken, beef or veggie version . They are delicious and they show me, once again, that whoever says that London eats badly is wrong and has to come and have a tour.
Eating well in London is more than possible
8:00 p.m. BLUES OR SKA JAM SESSION
If you have followed all the steps, it is possible that at this time you are like any other Sunday in La Latina ( or "tips" ), and that the most viable thing is to continue dancing. It is not necessary to go to a pub with hits from The 40s that made you initially despise Camden for looking like Huertas (or maybe he did?). You are in the best neighborhood in London to listen to live music. Check out the listings for Roundhouse, Proud Camden and Koko. If, in fact, you came on a Sunday, so do a couple of other places that host jam sessions: ** The Blues Kitchen , for blues, and The Fiddler's Elbow , for ska**. They don't get crowded (or so experience tells me) and, if you survived the market and stables, they're just what you want to end the tour and that makes you want to come back, the following weekend , again to Camden Town.
The Blues Kitchen, the temple of blues in Camden