To not get the fuss with covent garden

[Fairyloo]

Every time I go to london people tell me go to covent garden "it's amazing". I always go and feel a bit let down. It's high st shops and millions of miserable street performers.

I like the inside market bin but so overpriced.

I do love south bank.

Am I missing something with covent garden??

Oh I don't know, the carrot and coriander isn't bad.

I prefer Covent Garden to Spitalfields Market, but to be fair I've only been to the latter once and got pissed off at it because I quickly ran around it and couldn't see anything worth buying for Xmas presents. It just seemed full of artwork stalls...that I couldn't afford to buy from...educate me further if that's a misguided opinion

I don't go to London very often and when I do go I am usually a tourist!

When DD was smaller we did enjoy taking her to Covent Garden because of the street performers. She once got chosen to "help" the performer with his act and it was lovely - really made the day.

Oh and there is that fantastic shop - Pollocks(?) - that sells toy theatres. Is it still there? I took DD to London for a matinee once when she was about 7 or 8 and we had gone to Covent Garden to kill time and found that shop. The cardboard toy theatre wasn't very expensive so I treated her to it and she was thrilled. I have always had a soft spot for it since.

Me too Totes! My mum and dad relocated from London to the South Coast when I was three...harrumph! I have never completely forgiven them.

I like Covent Garden. It's not the be all and end all but it's a nice place to spend half a day mooching and DD loves it, although I expect her ambition to see James.& Bob on one of our future visits will go unfulfilled.

Have only been to South Bank once recently and it was pissing down so not great. Hoping for better luck when we go there in July, although gutted to be missing Udderbelly by a week.

Have fond memories of Camden & Brick Lane markets and love Dulwich .

Floral Street is nice - agnès b and Paul Smith. Not that I can afford either.

Try Borough, Notting Hill or Camden markets!

Or Hyde Park, Piccadilly Circus, the museums, the aquarium, the Tower of London, the London Eye... London really is all that.

Paris, Rome and New York are all wonderful but I have never experienced anywhere as quite as diverse and exciting as London.

I hate it and always avoid wherever possible. Yanbu

I think that if you stick to strictly Covent Garden it could be a bit disappointing. However, keep walking. Don't turn right when you leave the tube, turn left. Head up to Seven Dials, Neals Yard, etc. Great shopping, pubs, real atmosphere and very trendy people.

I spent a lovely afternoon recently with a gorgeous man in the Lamb & Flag pub. I like Covent Garden.

But I like all of London really.

It has a moomins shop though!

When I was at my crammer the balcony of the Punch and Judy was THE place to be
but that was nearly 30 years ago

South Bank is certainly more amusing now
shame cardboard city is returning (nice one Boris)

Totes
I grew up in London and could no way afford to live there now, same as I could not afford to live in New York where I was born.
I'm not resentful : I just enjoy my visits.

I was in London for the first time in many years last year, and I wasn't impressed.
It wasn't London though, it was me, we stuck to places we'd heard off, Covent Garden being one of them, and I needed more.
So what do Londoners recommend , I wanted somewhere away from the tourists, but still Londonish.

Our kids like Covent Garden and taking the stairs in the tube, rather than the lift. They also like the restaurants esp Le Cafe Du Jardin.

Meh! I could take it or leave it.

Lady Beagle Eyes I like to sit in a Bloomsbury Square a while, perhaps Gordon Square, then u could visit the Cartoon Museum or somewhere....then perhaps take a bus down to East St or Brixton...

I used to work in the ticket office at Covent Garden tube station, birds eye view. Working shifts I got to see the whole spectrum of the day and what a variance there was!

5am-7am= mostly desolate, eerily quiet. Except for the drug addicts that have wandered from Soho, unable to score and frantic. The homeless asleep in the doorways, knowing that soon they'd have to vacate their doorway.

7am-9am= The Covent Garden workers arriving. Some suited and booted, others more bohemian.

9am-5pm= Tourists arriving. Thousands of them. If I had 5pence for every direction I gave I'd be a rich Shakey Mostly getting stuck in the gates, congregating outside the station taking photos.

5pm-7pm= Mixture of workers heading home and theatre goers arriving. Constant stream of people/entertainers passing by.

7pm-11pm= quietish. People either inside theatres, restaurants and pubs.

11pm-1am= varying between people that are delightfully merry, drunk, completely arseholed to downright abusive. So much grief when the trains stopped running, directions to nightbuses. Addicts and pickpockets rife and the homeless once again, settiling down for the night.

I loved it.

I love CG at Christmas - such great decorations, and before 11 in the morning when I can still get around.

I'm moving from London in a couple of weeks and am devastated - I am going to miss it so much .

shakey
I used to go to Covent Garden Opera as a kid when the flower market was still there : vibrant was not even the word - but the toilets next to the church were always dodgy

Circus bar/restaurant is in Covent Garden-now that most definitely is all that.

Also love Covent Garden at Christmas. And the Transport Musuem.

Prefer Neal's Yard/Seven Dials bit for shopping. And have to visit Stanfords every time I am in London.

oh Stanfords is superb!! And walk along Long Acre to the Holborn end and admire Freemasons Hall and the weird shops opposite with all the regalia.

Dulwich. Pretty picture card 'village' with lovely art gallery and the Horniman museum close by with its famous walrus.

Shoreditch. Close to Spitalfields market and Liverpool Street. Uber trendy hipster mecca. Fancypants bars and restaurants. Art galleries. Take a guided street art walk. Loads of fab and cheap Vietnamese restaurants.

Bankside - at the back of Tate Modern and around the London Bridge area. The Shard, europe's tallest building, The George Inn, very old very rickety contender for oldest pub. And the lovely Borough market. Newly done up, for your fancy cheeses and kangaroo burgers etc.

Dare I say Brixton? 12 minutes from Oxford Circus on the Victoria Line.

I'm loath to advertise the place.

It has a lively and very 'now' food 'scene' in Brixton Market. Take a guided walk of the market or visit the newly renovated windmill! Plenty of nice pubs and bars too.

It also has Brockwell park which is fairly vast and lovely on a summer's day. Good views over the city too.

interestingly there is pub right there called the Newton Arms if anyone is into a bit of psycho-geography.

If you want to do soho/covent garden try the seven noses of soho walk.

talkingpeace I know the ones you mean

The other great thing (though tres shallow) was celebrity spotting. Tons of them!

the only sleb I ever saw in Covent Garden was Peter O'Toole inspecting the contents of a bin. that was a while ago mind...