Another opportunity to stroll an area of London and learn about it's history and place in modern London. There's seriously so much to see and do and learn in this city.
We started with a fascinating history about the area, saw famous street art (even a Banksy behind glass), the original Stik People and then had a yummy lunch. So what started out as a quick review about Pizza East (which I love), the chat morphed into a bit of a review about the whole day.
Shoreditch has to be one of the most interesting, eclectic areas of London I've explored so far. Sadly the weather was awful - it was cold and wet, which meant looking UP at artwork on buildings wasn't easy with umbrellas, so another visit on a dry day will be organised.
It's probably easier if you simply click here for a brief history as you know me, I love it when I hear it, would love to remember IT ALL to share it with you but ......... apparently I'm not the only one (thank goodness) as several friends on the tour said the same thing. They go back to do their photos on Facebook and think what was that? where were we? what did our guide say?
Walking from the station, we passed Boxpark but didnt' go in. In fact, with this guide, we tend not to go in anywhere! When there's 15+ ladies, it would be a nightmare getting everyone out and keeping on schedule. So we see the exterior of places and make mental notes to return.
The architecture was very mixed, with really interesting history of different nationalities moving in and out of the area of the decades, and with them the food, music and art of their homeland. Some areas were very poor indeed, and as Shoreditch was 'just' outside the walls of London in days gone by, artists and musicians, and the poorer groups of society lived happily here, doing their own thing, away from the rules of within London City. While it's now very much as suburb of London you can feel there's still a bit of that mischief in the air.
With close proximity to London CBD, the area is transforming again into quite a trendy area, expensive housing, fashion, restaurants, galleries and more. If we were empty nesters, and hubby was based in London I think it would be somewhere we'd consider living (if we could afford it)
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| ROA's work is amazing! This is from Google images, and when we saw it last week, another artist had added nomadic native hunters in and around the legs of the animal, creating a hide'n'seek scenario about hunting and gathering. |
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| Romeo and Juliet ..... the pub has been left standing in the middle of an excavation site, ready for redevelopment. The history of the pub, and the symbolism of this street art ensured it's preservation. The first performance of Rome and Juliet took place at a theatre close by (there's two theatres, and each claim this event as their own) |
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| One of the areas' most famous artists, and works STIK. It was wonderful to see this work up close. THEN WE ATE!  
This This entire area is amazing! You really should make the time to visit - a whole day infact.
You must remember to LOOK all around you, in every direction as sometimes what you need to see isn't always apparent (there's several brightly coloured mushrooms on top of buildings for example, and some street signs have been reworked into art)
You can always do a guided street art tour.
It's yet another place I'd enjoy going back to as we only scratched the surface and the weather wasn't great.
For Pizza East go to www.pizzaeast.com
The walking tour we did was with a private guide, however, if you simply Google Search for "Shoreditch Street Art Tours' you'll find several to choose from.
With friendship
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