Little Venice Walk

This afternoon, after I was (somewhat) satisfied with the amount of study I'd done, I went on a London Walk to Little Venice with Susan. Little Venice is in North-West London, and it consists of a system of canals, which is actually just one long canal broken up into different sections and given different names. Apart from that, it's nothing like Venice, but there are really nice houses and lots of famous names!

The tour costs £6 for students, and there's no need to book, just rock up and pay your tour guide. There were a lot of people! But it was okay. It lasted an hour and 40 minutes, and our tour guide was Shaughan. He was quite a character, and very informative.

The tour started here.

We walked through the neighbourhood. Lots of really nice (and expensive) houses.

The weather was amazingly sunny. To the point where I actually made the effort to put on my contacts so that I could wear my sunnies. Also the autumn colours were really pretty.

Then we walked to Paddington Green.

This next picture is a row of tombstones have have been put in a row along the wall.

Then we walked along the canal.

The time went really quickly, and before we knew it we were finished.

After the tour Susan and I went to one of the cafes recommended by Shaughan, called Baker&Spice. 

It looked quite nice from the outside. Ummm I don't have a picture.

The service was pretty bad. We walked in, and everyone behind the counter looked up at us, but no one actually approached us and asked us if we were okay. So we just chose a table and sat down, but no one gave us a menu or anything, so we asked. They said to just look at what was on display. So despite having already sat down, the both of us got up again to look at the cakes on display. How awkward. On the board behind the counter was the take away menu for hot drinks with prices. Nothing said anything about different eat in prices for drinks, so we just thought it'd be the same. And some of the cakes had no labels or prices next to them and we had to ask. And when we asked they quoted the takeaway prices. When we had clearly just sat down at a table and got up again to look at the food. The food was also in 3 different display areas, so we were actually walking across the cafe to look at them all.

In the end we just ordered a pot of tea each and shared a baked blueberry cheesecake.

It was yum.

(This is half the slice of cake. We'd already cut it into half and put half on another plate when we realised we didn't have photo. Also, they were observant enough to give us 2 plates and 2 sets of cutlery without our asking. That was nice.)

When we went to pay, the tea was £2.60 a pot (different from the takeaway price), and the cake was £5.35, even though the sign had said £5.20. When I saw the receipt I told the woman at the counter that the sign under the cake said £5.20 a slice, and she mumbled something about the sign being old and needing to change it. I replied with "I think you should do it soon". I wasn't bothered enough to tell her that she had breached a contract, but I was not happy. So I left with that thought, which really doesn't leave a good impression, does it?

It was altogether a very awkward and clumsy experience. Won't be going back there again.

But Little Venice was good!