A Weekend in Hackney and Shoreditch

In July I visited London for the weekend for a wedding!

We stayed in this Airbnb in Hackney Wick. FAR cheaper than a hotel, (the flat was £90 and a hotel we’d found in the area was £140) – I really loved the amazing green views of London and the incredibly comfy M&S bedsheets.

I’m excluding the amount that I’m now spending on M&S bedsheets for my own house from the savings above…

View this post on Instagram

Shithouse To Penthouse. Art by @thesweettoof @dscreetsheet @malarko @mighty.monkey @aida_wilde @donelondon @xenzogram @donklondon @m.obstr @edwinonwalls plus more on White Post Lane. Tag any artists we missed

A post shared by Art N That (@artnthatuk) on Aug 2, 2016 at 1:24am PDT

Our flat was in Hackney Wick, a formerly industrial now super trendy bit of London with a pretty canalside area and lots of cool bars, galleries and restaurants.

While we were there, we ate at Natura Pizza (located, tremendously helpfully, at the base of the flats we were staying in), a cool Italian pizza-pasta restaurant run by actual Italians – always an excellent sign!

The pizza (I never choose pasta, let’s just be honest) was really good, with buffalo mozzarella. I’m not ashamed to tell you that I ate THE WHOLE THING and it was the size of an actual car tire. #proud

The next day we begrudgingly left our lovely AirBnb and went for an amble through Victoria Park and along Regent’s Canal. It was blazingly hot and a gorgeous spot where you literally don’t feel like you’re in the middle of a massive metropolis.

Victoria Park is London’s oldest public park and apparently the most popular… it was definitely well-used with SO many ambitious (so hot!) runners, dog walkers and families ambling around.

This fountain was built with money donated by Victorian philanthropist Angela Georgina Burdett-Coutts who was amazing. She was a hugely rich feminist who juggled managing Coutts bank with doing good all over the place, from founding the NSPCC to providing clean drinking water for the poor. She was the first woman ever to be awarded a peerage, and she finally got married in her 60s to her secretary, a man half her age who took her surname. Amazing!

View this post on Instagram

🌤 #london #regentscanal #ig_london

A post shared by Alessandra Sorrentino (@ale_rosaspina) on Aug 22, 2016 at 10:23am PDT

After walking through the whole of the park and along Regent’s canal (so pretty! so busy!) we made a stop at Fabrique Bakery in Hoxton/Shoreditch for breakfast. Fabrique is reportedly home to the best cinnamon buns in London, and as I’m a cinnamon bun freak I had to try them out!

Naturally I got both a vanilla bun and a cinnamon bun, because that is the kind of balance I’m always striving for… WEIRD thing though, I didn’t love the cinnamon bun at all. I much prefer my own recipe (that’s super big headed to say, sorry!) which is more of a soft, tender bun rather than a harder bun. But the vanilla bun was delicious 🙂

Next, hopped up on sugar, we headed next door to the Geffrye Museum – the museum of the home. Two really cool things about the Geffrye – it’s FREE to get in, and they have free lockers for you to leave bags or shopping while you look around.

The museum takes you through the history of the home (spoiler alert) from 1600 till now, focusing on the middle class in London. It’s really interesting to see how the ways homes have been used and decorated have evolved, and why.

There’s also a lovely cafe and gorgeous gardens to wander around…