First Timer trip to London
 

I am doing a trip to London last minute for 5 days/4 nights starting a week from today.I've never been to London before, am going as a solo traveller, and am a cheesemonger. Would love to have some cheese shop or cheesemakers/farms suggestions. I'd also like to do things that aren't super touristy, the less popular (crowded) museums, and art galleries. All suggestions are welcome.

Definitely go to Neals Yard Dairy at Seven Dials in London (it is near Covent Garden) and also go to Borough Market (Neal's Yard also has a stall in this market) in Southwark - next to Southwark Cathedral.

There are lots of small cheese makers all over the country - but you only have 4+ days so You'll probably stay in the city. I'm sure Neal's Yard and other cheese sellers in the market will have info/contacts for you.

Don't waste time at Paxton & Whitfield's in Jermyn Street, which still gets into guidebooks as a serious cheese shop. It got that reputation back in the days the only edible cheese you could buy in Britain was Cracker Barrel, and it's hardly advanced since. Harrods and Selfridges both also have cheese sections that ill-informed travel writers like, but are little more than hangovers from the 1950s.

Surprisingly, you find an excellent range of English cheese (and of many other European hard cheeses) at the Whole Foods Market in Kensington High Street, though the staff aren't as well informed as they should be. IMHO, the best cheese shop in London these days is the Waitrose cheese room in the basement of John Lewis in Oxford Street. Employee-owned, Waitrose is by far Britain's best mass cheese seller, but the staff at the John Lewis branch are usually remarkably well-informed about suppliers for a chain store

La Fromagerie (Moxon St, off Marylebone High St. Maturing cellars and tasting at Highbury Park, N5: just a residential suburb) is the where most central London food snobs shop at. There's just a whiff of the late 60s about Neals Yard.

Getting to cheese producers is tricky from London. Most are way outside, and aren't really set up to cope with lay visitors. The Daylesford shops in Notting Hill and Pimlico (www.daylesfordorganic.com) sell some cheese they make themselves in Gloucestershire and Cheshire, though there's a slightly Marie Antoinette hokiness about the whole Daylesford operation and getting to their main (and in my view rather theme park-y) shop and creamery by public transport from London is time-consuming. And possibly unrewarding for a real cheesemonger

However, you'll know how accommodating cheesies are to other cheesies. If you haven't got professional contacts here I might be able to offer you some introductions (but I really don't think you've got time to follow them up). Email me at [email protected]

What flannuer said....

FlannerUK = Wallace

As for museums, I highly recommend the Churchill War Rooms. Even if you are not a history buff, this museum is fascinating. After WWll was over, Churchill and his cabinet basically turned off the lights, locked the doors and went home. The bunkers where they hid and strategized during the war are now open to the public as a museum.

"FlannerUK = Wallace"

I ressemble that. If you're calling me a beagle, I'll get the next flight up and put you right.

I've got my passport, so I'm allowed into Scotland.

And the Boss won't touch Wensleydale. Mrs Kirkham's Lancashire's what he goes for. Too mean to buy proper 36 month Parmesan.

One of our favorite London museums is the Imperial War Museum. It has fascinating exhibits about Britain in World Wars I and II, including a Holocaust exhibit. Our favorite part was the "Children at War" exhibit which showed what life was like for British children during World War II.

Also, Fortnum and Mason on Picadilly Road has a cheese counter, althought the selection will not be as extensive as the selection in the stores flanneruk has suggested.

Look at www.walks.com. The London Walks are very good and reasonably priced. No booking, you just show up at the meeting point. I especially enjoyed the Little Venice walk, surprising to find that canal and all the live-aboard narrowboats in the center of the city. Traveling alone, you might also enjoy one of the pub walks.

The Cabinet War Rooms and Churchill Museum is fascinating, well worth a couple of hours of your time.

You might also enjoy the "treasures room" at the British Library - original manuscripts, a Gutenberg Bible, the Magna Carta...

Don't discount some of the other museums because they are popular. We were in London about the same time you'll be there, and the British Museum wasn't particularly crowded.

Lee Ann

Thank you guys for your suggestions. Especially the foodie ones.

(more foodie threads! I'm thinking of eating our way one day from Cardiff to the Cotswolds, should I start a new thread or has that been discussed - please link!)