Borough Markets and The Tower of London

We decided one morning to skip breakfast and instead head in to the Borough Markets. For those who don't know, the Borough Markets include fresh produce, baked good, meat/fish, cheeses, juices, wine and cider, as well as a long list of food stalls who cook fresh to order. So yes, this is basically another post about food and some further exploration - getting sick of them yet?

This year the Borough Markets celebrate their 1000th birthday. Think about that. These markets have been running, in this one place, for a thousand years. For four times longer than Australia has been colonised by the British. They are older, even, then the Tower of London.

We started our journey there by catching a train to Elephant and Castle, the name of which amused Mr no end. It amused us both even more when, at the entrance to the station, a statue of an elephant with a chess castle on it's back stood proudly.

After walking a little bit, we came across the entrance to the market. These markets are mostly indoors, hidden away underneath a rail line - you could walk right past them without even knowing.

Upon entering, we  find ourselves in a food and produce wonderland. So many options! They have a general policy within the markets that photographs are not taken of the stalls without the express permission of the stall owners, so even though many tourists seem to have been ignoring or were unaware of this, we stuck fast to that rule in respect. We did, however, take pictures of almost all of the food we consumed while there. In retrospect, we ate a fair amount, but remember we had skipped breakfast!

We started off by sharing a venison burger from a man who was good friends with someone from the restaurant Bucci in Brisbane. I must say it was one of the most tasty burgers I've ever had, and being married to Mr, I've had a fair few! We paired this with fresh lemonade from the neighbouring stall, which we did not take a photo of. 

We then went back to a bakery we had spotted earlier to sample a pair of doughnuts that caught my eye. (As a good friend once told me, we simply don't have enough doughnuts in our lives!) I had a vanilla bean custard filled one, and Mr had a salted honeycomb and caramel crème filled one. After trying gourmet doughnuts from various vendors back home, I was surprised to find these were so much more tasty. They may look small, but they were more than satisfying.

We then wandered around some more, and found a whole separate section of the markets that was purely hot food stalls. Mr has a love affair with gyoza, so naturally we had to try some chicken and vegetable ones. They were so good we even forgot to take a picture! From here we admired the other stalls, but were too full to eat any more. Below, however, is a picture of a giant pile of giant cookies, each about the size of a large man's hand. Next to it is a pile of equally large meringues (we've discovered London loves meringues, which is good news for me! I may or may not have bought one to save for later...).

 

 At this point we decided we were quite thirsty. Mr remembered a cider stall we'd come across earlier that sold ciders fresh out of the barrels. On the way there, I spotted a wine seller who had pre-made peach and prosecco cocktails, so I picked up one of those. Prosecco seems incredibly popular over here, yet we'd hardly ever seen any back home! I did really enjoy this drink, and Mr mostly enjoyed his cider once he got used to the unusual out-of-the-barrel taste.

At this stage we figured we'd taken our fill of the markets and decided to head to the nearby Tower of London. It is a place that's on our bucket list, but I don't consider it marked off just yet, as we only had a short walk around before having to return home.

The walk from the markets to the Tower took us across London Bridge - much less impressive than thought. It did, however, give us good views of the river.

From here it was a short walk to the Tower, where we initially admired the outside and read the information stands. It was interesting to see images of what the tower used to look like, compared to now. There is no longer a moat, and many of the outer buildings don't exist any more.

We had discovered online that morning that you can buy year-long membership, which gives you free entry to the Tower of London, Kew Palace, Kensington Palace, Hampton Court Palace and Banqueting House. As we knew we'd like to return to the Tower, and want to visit Kensington Palace, this was a good option for us. Buying membership at the ticket office was easy enough, and then into the Tower we went.

It was so incredible to walk through this historic structure and imagine life there throughout the ages. The various building have little plaques on them saying when they were built, so you can see how it has grown and expanded.

Mr commented that in a lot of fantasy books and stories they talk about bringing entire towns into the keep, and we could finally see how that was possible. There are so many buildings and large spaces. You could easily live out your whole life there without ever leaving, and I'm sure many people did.

I will write a proper post about it when we visit longer and go on the tours etc For now, here are a few photos of the places we explored while there this time.

 

After our quick explorations, we went for a walk across Tower Bridge. Never have I seen a more glamorous, beautiful bridge. It looks like it could be a fairy-tale castle in it's own right, though I'm not too fond of the blue metalwork.

From here it was back on the train home. I can't wait to go back and delve deeper into these incredible places!