Day trip of the day - St Albans

St Albans is about 40 minutes north of London, and a day return on the Thameslink route will set you back about £9. (There are two stations, but the Watford to St Albans Abbey line is much less convenient.)

There are a good number of walking tours available (the ghost walk, especially, is a good mix of local history and good story telling) but I'm going to write this in the style of one anyway. I grew up in St Albans, and writing this post is giving me flashbacks to a school project to write a tourist brochure for the city when I was 12... Anyway.

Leaving the station by the ticket-office side, and turning left and left again it's a short pleasant walk to the top end of the town centre, past the Victorian Clarence Park (home of St Albans City Football Club - a decent and cheap choice if you want to catch a 'local' football match in season - tickets are a mere £10 / £5 which is dirt cheap compared to the premiership clubs' prices.)

Following the road straight up, over the railway bridge and past the college, brings you out just by St Peter's church, originally founded in 948, along with the market. Bits of the 13th and 15th century church remain, but the current building almost all dates from an 1893 restoration. (personal aside : they have a ten bell tower, and are regional champion bell ringers, and I spent hours of my childhood sitting in a windowsill of the tower, as my dad rang there.)

The market runs on Wednesday and Saturday, with 170 stalls stretching the whole length of St Peter's Street, and it's worth timing your visit to coincide. Wednesday's market's got a slightly more 'arts and crafts' tilt to it, as not all the food stalls turn out mid-week, but either day is good. (The second Sunday of each month there's also a farmer's market outside the town hall, so if you're in town for a worship-visit to the Cathedral, check that out.)

Following the length of the market will take you down to the Medieval Clock Tower (80p/40p to climb on a Saturday) and the area of town used as a refuge by Henry VI during the War of the Roses (St Albans saw two major battles in the Civil War), and, across the road, a arrow passageway that will take you past the walled garden down to (mostly Norman) St Alban's Cathedral and Abbey Church.

St Alban was the earliest English Christian Martyr, according to the Venerable Bede (line vii). A Roman resident of Verumanium, Alban sheltered a priest, and was converted to Christianity by him. When soldiers came in search of the priest, Alba swapped cloaks with the man, allowing him to escape, and taking upon himself the punishment that would otherwise have been dealt to the priest - being made a human sacrifice to the city's Roman gods. The cathedral is supposed to be built on the site of his execution - originally as an important Abbey (the Magna Carta was drafted here) and then as a Cathedral.

When you've explored the Abbey, you can head down the grassy hill towards Verulanium Park for a drink in The Olde Fighting Cocks, which is the Guinness Book of Record's pick for the oldest pub in Britain (St Albans is also in the running for 'most pubs per head of population' and HQ of the Campaign for Real Ale) before heading past the lakes to go even further back in time, to the Roman occupation of the city.

There are several chunks of the Roman city walls visible in the park, and there square white building part way up the hill preserves and displays a (circa 100 AD) mosaic and hypocaust (free entry) while the impressive newly-extended Verulamium Museum (£3.30/£2) has good displays on everyday life in Roman Britain, and some of the finest Roman mosaics and wall plasters outside the Mediterranean (and if you hit a weekend when Legion XIIII are on patrol, even better). On, past the Verulamium Museum, there's the Roman Theatre (£2/1.50), the only British example of a theatre rather than an amphitheatre.

(There' also a City Museum, back towards the station, looking at the post-Roman history of the city, but I've always loved Verulamium, and am being shamelessly biassed.)

Coming back, you have the option of waffles in a 16th century water mill, and if you head back through the park, past the lakes, and picking up the Ver river, you will land at the foot of Holywell Hill, which will take you back into the town centre via several old coaching inns.

There's a bunch of things to do around and about the city, but I'm assuming that you're day tripping on foot / by train, so I won't include them here. (Hatfield House may show up as a separate trip.)

St Albans isn't short on pubs,and places to eat, but there's not a single club I'd recommend. The Horn Reborn, by the station, is the best venue for small bands, and won ‘Music Pub of the Year’ earlier this year.

Day trip of the day - Brighton

Brighton's just about the classic daytrip from London, and has been since the 1840s. Nowadays, about an hour on the train (two an hour from Victoria, four an hour from St Pancras International / Blackfriars / London Bridge) or two hours on the coach will whisk you out of London and down to the seaside. If you can co-ordinate with some friends, a GroupSave train ticket is excellent value for four people.

A day spent messing about on the beach (yes, that pile of stones is a beach), promenading on the pier, and poking about in the shops in the Laines wouldn't be a day wasted, but if you'd like a little bit more direction than that, there are two companies offering MP3 walking tours - CoolCityWalks and Tourist Tracks (get £1 off with a voucher from DaysOutGuide)

John Nash's Royal Pavilion is one of my favourite 'stately homes' - it was built as Prince George's pleasure palace and is suitably frivolous and OTT. Entry is £8.50 adults / £6.50 students, and I think it's worth every penny. Brighton Museum and Art Gallery (free) is just across the beautiful gardens, and covers the wider history of the city - I particularly like the fashion and style gallery, which is fantastically eclectic.

If that's not enough to keep you busy, taking the 77 bus from Brighton Pier to Devil's Dyke is a lovely way to get out into the countryside, or the sea life centre, the oldest operating aquarium in the world, is fun, if a little expensive (£12.99/£10/99). I'm glad, from an animal welfare point of view, that they no longer have performing dolphins, but I must admit that my strongest memory of the Aquarium was going to see the dolphin show with my gran when I was a kidlet. Now, if you want to see dolphins playing, you need to look out to sea, as it should be.

Or skip all of that and head down for a day at the races instead, with tickets in the £9 - £20 region for most events, and a courtesy bus running from the station from about two hours before the day's first race.

There's no shortage of good places to eat and drink (I like Food for Friends, or The Greys, especially for Sunday lunch) and no shortage of clubs, gigs, and events either, but beware: check the time of your last train home - it's pre-pub closing for the Victoria route, and only 11.37 on the London Bridge line.

Day trip of the day - York

I'm being asked a lot about day trips at the moment, so I'll try and put together a mini-series of day trip of the day posts*, starting with York.

Now, York is really on the far edge of day-trip-able, and if at all possible I'd recommend taking a weekend or longer, and spending some time outside the city - maybe take the bus over to Whitby or up to Durham - but if, as is the case with the friend I'm planning this with, you're only in the UK for a total of five days, a day trip can be done and is worthwhile - it's a fantastic city.

Trains run from London direct to York in a shade over two hours, and you can get tickets around the £25 return mark by booking ahead and being flexible about when you travel. (My friend and I are on the 9am train, as that's cheaper than earlier trains that could be used by business travellers with morning meetings, for example) Buying a ticket on the day, however, will set you back over £100, so book ahead.

£25 for nearly ten hours of York - that's a bargain, and enough time to walk the city walls, visit York Minster, the largest gothic cathedral in northern Europe (entry costs between £4 adults/£3 students and £9/£7.50 depending on which areas you want access to,) and find somewhere fabulous to eat, before joining one of the ghost walks.

If you get a really early train, you could maybe also squeeze in a trip to the JORVIK Viking Centre (entry £8/£7.50, call 01904 615505 to pre-book and skip the queue) or if Viking's aren't your thing, consider the National Rail Museum (free), Yorkshire Castle Museum, with it's recreated Victorian street (£7.50/£6.50), or the Yorkshire Museum and Gardens, (Museum £5/£4, garden's free).

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* aimed towards my students, who are for the most part newly arrived in the UK for the first time, so if you're a local reader, I apologise if what I'm about to write seems obvious to you.

Oh we can dance again, take a chance again

A new group of students has just started their first week of classes, and I've been asked several times about my favourite things to do in London. It's always a hard question. (The real answer is 'almost all of it, which is why I still live here'. ;D)

I usually default to 'walking' as an answer, because it covers so much ground (pun intentional). I know I've asked the question of favourite free things to do here before, and the routes offered in the comments varied, but the walking was a constant*.

My other common answers (it really depends on the moment I'm asked) include the British Museum, the V and A, gigging**, and Borough Market followed by a kitchen full of friends, or a picnic in the park of your choice, depending on the weather.

And 'taking advantage of some of the free stuff that's going on'. No one's ever going to make an argument that London's a cheap place to live, but we're positively spoiled for fantastic free events, on top of all the free museums and galleries. Time Out lists no less than 101 free music events in the next seven days, and 36 free club nights.

Tabs I currently have open as I try and plan my diary over the next few weeks include:

• - A Beginner’s Guide to Cryptozoology at the Grant Museum tomorrow.
• - A selection of gigs at the Ritzy Cafe in Brixton.
• - Paradise Gardens this weekend.
• - V and A Late (writing and confession theme) on the 30th (which clashes with the Orla Murphy Quarter at the National Portrait Gallery).
• - Burn So Bright on the 6th.
• and a shortlist of lectures and screenings at the RSA (see also the audio page for downloads of past lectures)

(Plus the Royal Ballet's Romeo and Juliet on the big screen on the 1st, and a free new play, Nobody Lives Forever, at the Wellcome, which I can't go to because the performance times clash with my working hours. Tuesday 20 and Wednesday 21 May, 12.30-13.30 and Thursday 22-Saturday 24 May, 15.00-16.30 for any readers with more flexible schedules.)

All of them, free as a free thing, and probably not even 10% of the free events happening in the near future.

~~~
* while Greater London is undeniably huge, there's so much within the bounds of the Circle Line that's never much more than an hours walk, so it seems crazy not to take advantage.

** it's been an excellent gig month for me, with shows ranging in size from the 02 to a friend's band in the pub, hitting the Union Chapel, Brixton Academy, Astoria 2, and Indigo 2 along the way (plus one Birmingham date, and another out of town show next weekend.) Friends and good live music - what's not to love?

See the glow up above

One of the marketing blogs I read mentioned this site, which is a collective experiment in brand perception - tags are generated by the public. Their relative size in the cloud indicates how common that response was. I had a bit of a play, and the results are very interesting. But it does rather beg the question, is it too late to change the London Olympics logo?

(for the record, I'm massively pro London hosting the 2012 Olympics, and super-excited about having them in my back yard, but the logo? Not so much.)

and the choices come

Voting Day!

I've been quiet here about the London Mayoral Election campaigns, out of a sense that I ought to try and be non-party-political.

My principles say that I can try and tell generic-you to vote but not try and tell you who to vote for. Pesky things, principles.

*sigh*

Go! Vote! Be informed, and exercise your democratic rights!


***

I hit my local polling station on the way into work this morning, where there was a small queue, and a team of three mid-twenties guys manning the tables and patiently explaining the voting process over and over and over again. Patience of saints. It's not complicated, but it is more fiddly than a single-ballot, single-vote would be, so it can't hurt to have the process re-enforced on the day.

I do wonder how much the opinion poll results are affected by being based on traditional 'first past the post' thought processes - certainly both the surveys I've been invited to participate in were only asking for a first choice, not first and second.

I truly hope that the two-vote mayoral ballot will give the 'mainstream minority' candidates a chance, as my first choice is neither of the two front runners. It's quite refreshing to have the tactical votes advice be to give your first vote where you actually want it to go, and then apply your second as insurance against the worst case scenario!

(I also hope that turn out is high enough, and the general population of London sane enough to keep the BNP and co out of the London assembly. The alternative doesn't bear thinking about.)