London Adventures: Borough Market
When we arrived in London on Thursday, we took the weekend pretty easy. We’d just been going, going, going for so many weeks, it was nice to have some lazy mornings, lots of reading picture books on the couch, and eating meals at home.
But, of course, with London outside your window, you can’t stay in forever.
One of the places I was most excited to go back to was the Borough Market. I’d gone a couple of times when I was study abroad and loved it every time, but Bart had never been.
When I looked it up for directions, I discovered that the Borough Market was celebrating 1000 years this year. Yeesh, Europe is old.
But it’s looking good despite being completely ancient.
It’s a huge outdoor market under the rail tracks and there are so many stalls and booths and tiny shops you can hardly make your way to all of them. It’s a perfect outing for little kids because there is so much to look at and plenty of things to eat. We opted not to take our stroller, but there were plenty of people with them and it seemed to be fine too.
We spent about an hour and a half wandering around, trying dozens of samples. Even Ella, who tends toward pickiness right now, would try basically everything, including partridge and cashew pate(!).
Our favorite samples were brownies, mushroom pate, some amazing tomato chutney, and a balsamic glaze for dipping bread in. And, of course, some amazing salted caramel fudge. I’m getting hungry just thinking about it all again.
It made for a really fun morning, and we’ll definitely be back again.
And now that we’re settled in, the real adventures are starting. Tomorrow we’re off on our first day trip and we’re trying to hit fun places during the week, both as a family when Bart’s not in school and the girls and me by ourselves when he is. Yesterday, we hit the British Museum in the morning, which Ella unexpectedly loved.
And, obviously about ten million trips to the park.
Oh how I love living in London – markets like these are so fun to wander around, and your photos of Borough market are really lovely 🙂 xx
Angelica // One Little Vice
Oh my goodness. Borough Market is my fave. I think I might have to stop reading your blog because I am getting so homesick for London (I spent two semesters there).
I think I probably ate about a dozen brownies from one of the shops there one semester.
The British Transport Museum at Covent Garden is fun for kids. Your adult ticket can be turned into an annual pass for NO additional money.
One of my favorites!! I lived around the corner from there for a few years. Try the raclette – it's to die for!!! 🙂
We were there showing of BM to my in-laws at the same time, we must have wandered around one another!
Oh what a glorious experience Janssen! I'm so glad you're soaking it all in and getting out a ton. Take copious notes for that eventual day when I make it across the pond again. 🙂
Another amazing food adventure! I loved this market when we were there with you and Merx. The cheese was my favorite!!
Borough Market is one of my favourite places in the whole city! Even though it's ridiculously busy, there's still a charm to it and it has some of the most special food – Bread Ahead doughnuts for one! There's some other amazing markets you should explore if you don't know them already – Maltby Street (some of the same traders as at Borough and some great antique caves), Broadway Market, Portobello…x
Borough Market is literally my favorite place on the earth! You have have have to get a grilled cheese. They are the absolute best!
That's got to be a hard balance to do fun things with the girls during the week to explore but to make sure Bart gets to do cool stuff too/and not miss everything on the weekends.