London, The East End

The East End of London has never been a glamorous place. Too close to the docks and too far from the City Centre, it is usually ignored. But when London hosts the Olympics in 2012, many will see its charms.

While my tour group visited the Tower of London, three of us headed north. After a great working class lunch we set off on the grand adventure. Armed with a map and no particular place to go we found Spitalfields Market. As it was mid-week, the vendors and stands were at a minimum and what was on hand was a bit more dear than I had hoped. My next quest was the vintage and thrift shops, but apparently one of my companions missed that part of the conversation before heading out and was more than a bit grossed out...so we moved on. After an hour of leisurely walking we found the Geffrye Museum. This was a former alms house that has been converted into a fine display of period rooms and gardens. It was well worth the walk. My favorite was the geranium tree - something I plan on working on this week at home.

Luckily we found a brand new tube stop behind the museum. The Hoxton stop was not on my Streetwise Map, but lucky for us there it was! Kinda fun as one of my favorite knitting podcasters hails from this neighborhood. So as there were no Electric Sheep in sight, we made our way back to the group and moved on to the Hard Rock Cafe. There we had the opportunity to go into the vault to view the guitars and costumes of the music icons. Not really a rock star groupie, but it was pretty neat.