London
 

My 30 something husband and I are traveling to London for our first time and prefer to avoid major tourist attractions, if possible. We will especially be tramping around the pubs/nightlife. We opt for a small dark friendly environment over an overcrowed snobby place. Any recommendations?

Every tourist I know (and I know a lot of them) are seeking out and finding the small, dark, friendly pubs. None of them like the overcrowded snobby places. So I think you're going to be out of luck. The reason most places are "tourist attractions" is because they offer the most or the best of the area. And actually the places that are overcrowded and snobby are invariably filled with locals.

Well, if you are willing to wander, it's surprising what you might find (and I think London is a relatively safe city at night). we were heading for somewhere and got lost, and ended up in the 'legal' district (near the law school) and went into a pub, nothing notable to look at, but had a wonderful and entertaining time. Just wander about with no preplanned destination, and I promise you, you will have an adventure. Look at the Tavistock hotel, which is very central and relatively economical, for a great central place to stay. (near
Russell square).

I often wonder what folks mean when they say "avoid tourist attractions"

Do you mean overcrowded joints like Madame Tussauds - then sure, I understand.

But the vast majority of central (and quite a bit of outlying) London is one major tourist attraction and has been for hundreds of years. Do you plan on laying low during the day so to avoid all those other tourists - and then creeping out at night to some dark, friendly pub w/ nary a tourist to be found??

Guess I just don't understand your question.

You're looking for dark, friendly pubs? Is that right? If so where are you staying - there are about 30,000 pubs in London.

I'd have a look at http://www.fancyapint.com/

It lists pubs by area, rates them and tells you what sort of clientele it has.
It has pictures for most of the listed pubs.

Quite how one can be a first time visitor and "avoid major tourist attractions" is beyond me. How can you rule out anything along the Thame, the Tates, the Cathedrals, etcetera? You can't. So for daytime, you're going to have to do the touristy things. Of course there are places that are less touristy... but then these are usually less touristy for a reason!

As for nightlife, anywhere you have to be a member tends to - by its very nature - be exclusive, but of course it's not practical for a tourist. Are pubs friendly? Personally, when in London - which is most of the time as I live there - I can't stand the places! Pubs tend to have their "regulars" and anyone who sticks out from the usual clientele i.e. a tourist won't be sharing in that supposed "friendly environment" anyway. You're far better off to find a relatively small (as you stated) bar in Soho and enjoy a cocktail or two in far more fashionable style!

London is a huge city.
Decide where you wish to stay and THEN look for pubs not too far.

Get a map of tourist attractions. Circle the places you want to avoid. Go walking.

Actually I thought the original question was rather "snobby." But most of the other posters summed it well. I would hate to think that I went to London only to see the insides of a bunch of dark pubs. Stay home and save your money for a real adventure.

I think it's not an unusual perspective -- "we aren't like other tourists. They just don't know better. We like to avoid the touristy things." It's a very snobbish and usually incorrect assumption. But in fact, those who avoid the tourist attractions have invariably missed the very essence of a city. If someone's main goal was just to sit in a dark pub, why spend all that money. Don't they have dark bars at home?

If these people don't want to go to tourist sights, so what?

Most visitors to London are too busy seeing relatives, negotiating contracts, learning English or researching their next book to waste time on the Tower or the Abbey.

It may well be that the holier than thou gang giving the poster such a hard time don't have anything else to do than gawp at monuments. But most people who come here have a life to lead. Doubtless sakegrrrrrrrl is in this group.

The simple answer for nightlife and pubs: Buy the Time Out Guide to Bars, Pubs and Clubs (£6.99 from any decent bookshop). There are thousands of them, but only a handful of respondents on this site. And sakegrrrrrrrrrl has no way of knowing whether those respondents' tastes are hers, her mother's, those of that distant aunt whose Xmas prezzies she always gives straight to the nearest charity shop - or just plain tasteless.

right on, flanneruk.

Just a handful of Major Tourist Attractions in London:

The London Eye
The Houses of Parliament
Big Ben
Westminster Abby
Tower Bridge
Picadilly circus
The Strand
The Thames
St. James Park
Green Park
Hyde Park
Regent Park
Kew Gardens
Tower of London
Oxford Street
Regent Street
Trafalgar Square
Buckingham Palace
Whitehall
The Southbank
Covent Garden
Little Venice
ALL the museums
London Theatres
Any Market
Harrods



I maintain that anyone who goes to London and deliberately avoids all those things because they are "too touristy" is making a mistake. But I guess that's just me.

I apologize completely if flanneruk is correct that saegrrl is going to London to:
a) see relatives
b) negotiate contracts
c) learn English
Or
d) research her next book

Forgive me for thinking none of those were the intent of the travel to London. And I will firmly challenge him to prove that "MOST" visitors to London are doing any of those things. What a bunch of hogwash.

sakegirl in another post has said that they do intend to visit the ususal tourist sites during the day. Her post is asking for nightlife entertainment/pubs suggestions.

I think m-kingdom2 has pretty much said it all,IMO.

Wow, I didn't realize that a simple question could cause such a stir. Good thing my ego is intact(thanks to all that therapy)or I might be in tears right now after the lashings I received :). I've traveled to Europe several times and consider myself an open minded person. I enjoy a quiet evening with good wine/beer/food and company over a loud crowded place. So its obvious to me that some of you on this site assume that one has to do certain things when traveling in order to "experience" a place. Well I have a different take on it....I will do and go where I please and may stay if I like it. Yeah.....I'm an adult and I pay my own way. I think thats how it goes right? Adults???? Anyways, thanks to the majority of you who gave me good advice and didn't try spanking me for being such a bad grrrrrrl. Now onto my life!

Basically the trick with pubs is that you can pretty much telll a book by it's cover.

If you open the door and look at a bunch of blokes you would run away from if down a dark alley, then it's probably not the pub for you!

In any case most of the pubs in the centre of town are pretty pants - we don't go in them for much more than a post work pint.

The pubs we actually use are around where we live.

So that's why I asked where you were staying.

Just avoid wetherspoons!

sakegrrrl: Just in case you need a translation -- "pants" is not a good thing . . . . .

Sadly, I think your small, dark , friendly environment is very scarce in London these days. I think I understand what you mean and can only sudgest that you take a trip to Brighton, only just over an hour away and there you will find the new London. At least it feels very much like London did 30 years ago. Pubs and nightlife abound----lots with a dark friendly environment.
But then you have the big smoke for your major attractions.

There are plenty of really good pubs in London - just not in the tourist bits.

I don't know paddington though so I'm no help there.

My 30 something husband and I are travelling to London for our first time and prefer to avoid major tourist attractions, if possible. We will especially be tramping around the pubs and nightlife. We opt for a small dark friendly environment over an overcrowded snobby place.
The environment you seek may be in pubs and night clubs in these areas
Camden town, Angel (but please avoid up-market Islington), Whitechapel, Mile End, Clerkenwell, Farringdon, Lambeth, Greenwich (but avoid Blackheath. Greenwich has many tourists, but they do not dominate), Woolwich (but a long way out), Catford, and Brixton. To choose individual places please look in the events magazine Time Out, sold in your arrival airport, and use an A-Z street atlas, sold in the same place.
Because I am local to the London Borough of Lewisham I have on disc a note of what some parts are like (or were like), and this follows

LEWISHAM

From Fodors forum, 16 November 2001.

In this forum Wes Fowler says that he is thinking of touring in Lewisham. Now there's a challenge. Can I think of anything at all to bring an experienced tourist to the London Borough of Lewisham ? Next door Greenwich, of course, including the newly re-opened fifteenth century great hall at Eltham Palace. Next door Southwark, of course, including Dulwich. But Lewisham ? It is a great sausage of a place, so let's go, from south to north.

Crystal Palace

Just south of Lewisham, the Crystal Palace open air summer pop one day festival: http://www.thebowl.org.uk/
History of the Palace http://members.aol.com/ClassyinCT/palace.html

Victorian models of prehistoric monsters set around the Crystal Palace park. Choose your own dinosaur.
http://www.nyder.f2s.com/dinos.html

St Bartholomew's Church Sydenham, built 1832, now with so many musicians that they run their own orchestra. It's good.
http://barts.sydenham.org.uk/

Penge, where the Martians walked in HG Wells' "The War of the Worlds".
Text http://www.fourmilab.ch/etexts/www/warworlds/warw.html

Catford. http://www.lewisham.gov.uk/data/your...a/ar_catfd.htm

The Black Horse at Catford, a Victorian coaching pub, now alas with a jazzy contemporary name.
http://www.selondonguide.co.uk/prope...rd_history.htm

The Lewisham Theatre at Catford, built in twentieth century gothic. In the hard times of the thirties the Labour local government of Lewisham commissioned the design of this theatre to employ the greatest possible number of craftsmen. Good spot for pantomime in December, and for unlikely-looking amateur productions of Broadway musicals much of the year. A growing crop of Carribean broad comedies.

Forest Hill. http://www.lewisham.gov.uk/data/your...a/ar_forhi.htm

The Horniman Museum in Forest Hill. Founded by a tea-retailing capitalist, this is a free museum with a special duty to South London and the children of south London. Strong on folk art, global roots music, and ecology. Beside it are the Horniman Gardens, with lavish flowers, and with an Edwardian bandstand fully used on Sundays in summer.
http://www.horniman.demon.co.uk/

Very near Forest Hill station a prize-winning Indian restaurant, the Babur Brasserie

Lee: http://www.lewisham.gov.uk/data/your...ata/ar_lee.htm
This note is copied from the Borough of Lewisham page

St Margaret’s Church in Lee Terrace, 1841. Across the road are the
remains of the original 13th century church where astronomer royal Edmund Halley is buried.

The Manor House, now a Lewisham Council library, was built in the 1770s as a home for the well known Barings merchant banking family.

Pair of pubs: The Old Tiger’s Head and the New Tiger’s Head.

Ladywell. http://www.lewisham.gov.uk/data/your...a/ar_ladyw.htm

Ladywell Fields, between Catford and Ladywell. A well kept and well used civic park, with a tiny nature reserve beside Ladywell station.

At Ladywell, the old parish church of Lewisham, with eighteenth century graves around it.

St John’s and Grove Park

Lewisham College, by St John's station. If you phone to book in advance they'll serve you an excellent lunch, with wine, from Mondays to Fridays for about eight pounds. This is the training restaurant for the course on restaurant work, so you can expect impeccable service, with the occasional hurried whispers when you ask for something the student hasn't heard of - no worry: the tutor has.
http://www.lewisham.ac.uk/collegeinf...ach/index.html, then to “Hospitality and Leisure”

The Brockley Jack, a pub near Crofton Park station, with interesting Fringe plays.
Photo: http://www.brockley.com/Picpage/brockley_jack.htm

The wine bar between the pub and the station: good tapas.

New Cross. http://www.lewisham.gov.uk/data/your...c_hist_ncr.htm

Nunhead Cemetery, a large wooded place with a strong list of rare plants and butterflies, and dramatic Victorian funeral architecture for the tombs of magnates who were important, or who thought they were. An open day once a year, about May. http://www.fonc.org.uk/

The Cafe Orange at the top of Telegraph Hill. Cheap lunches several days weekly

Goldsmiths College, where for two decades the Department of Art has turned out prize winners - even though I can't understand what those artists do. Undergraduate show in June: graduate show in July
http://www.goldsmiths.ac.uk/visual-arts/menu.htm

Deptford Town Hall near New Cross Gate station. Described by Pevsner as
'one of the most florid of Edwardian public buildings' and by Nairn as 'the jolliest public building in London'. The exterior is a display of Edwardian pride in a Labour borough (now merged into Lewisham). Look for the model galleon at the top. If the caretaker lets you slip inside and into the Council Chamber you'll see some good craftwork. The hall is often used for public meetings in the evening, including free weekly lunchtime and evening recitals, see http://www.goldsmiths.ac.uk/departme...s/concerts.php

Deptford. History http://www.dircon.co.uk/sugarmouse/History.html

Deptford station. The only remaining station building of the world's first commuter railway, opened in 1836. A ramp leads up to the southern platform: up and down this they trundled railway passenger trucks by hand, for repair and maintenance.
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/RAgreenwich.htm

St Paul's Church Deptford, seventeenth century Anglican, ornate and well-endowed by the ships' captains who lived nearby and sailed from the Thames at Deptford. Sunday Mass at St Paul's draws admirers and worshippers from far and near - incense, bells, prayers to the Virgin, vestments. The interior is stunning. St Nicholas Church shows a more English restraint, but does include wood carving by Grinling Gibbons, the unmarked grave of Thomas Marlowe the playwright, and a gateway to mark the days when this was a plague pit.
St Paul’s: http://www.paulsdeptford.freeserve.co.uk/Services.htm
St Nicholas: http://www.dswark.org/parishes/087bj1_a.htm

The Deptford Dockmaster's house, eighteenth century, at the riverside. Not open.
http://www.nmm.ac.uk/education/fact_...act_docks.html

The new riverside monument by the Russian sculptor Mihail Chemiakin to mark Tsar Peter the Great's embassy to England in 1698. He came here and to Schiedam, the leading shipyards of Europe:
http://www.chemiakinbooks.com/HTMLFI...0Deptford.html
His party and he behaved badly here: http://www.gened.arizona.edu/atheneum/peterthegreat.htm and

http://www.manchesteruniversitypress...th/190116.pdf/.

I also have a note on conversations in pubs, and attach it now.



TO ENTER INTO CONVERSATION

People on the web fora often ask how a visitor can enter into conversation in a London pub.

You walk in, order your drink (it does not have to be alcoholic), and while you order you look around. If there is a conversation at the bar you go and stand within earshot, visibly listening, and after three minutes you listen for a point where you can contribute. At this early stage your contribution must be agreement with others. Often you can illustrate from experience in your own country. Your contribution should be short, and helpful. Bar regulars will respond to what you day, and for the next ten minutes you should continue with short points of agreement. About then you can start to disagree, politely. The regulars may think it polite to turn the conversation to be about you and your country. That is fine, but please bear in mind that you came in on a conversation that people liked, and it is probably good to get back to that topic. Almost certainly the original conversation will tell you more and interest you more than discussion of yourself.

If at a table two people are in deep personal conversation you of course do not sit there. If two or three are at a table in an conversation that interests you then you are free to walk over, keep standing, and say that you this interests you: may you join them ? The least sign of reluctance would lead you to move gently away, but on the whole you will be welcome, and will be shown your chair, or should bring one up.

If you walk in, you find no conversation, and the bartender is not pressed for time you can open a conversation with him or her. Religion, politics, and criticism of England are ruled out in this case. A good topic is something you have just seen in London, or are going to see, especially if you ask the bartender to advise you on it. With a bit of luck a Londoner at the bar will pick up the conversation, and you are launched. If the bartender is white and has an accent you can without ill manners ask him or her where the grandparents were from. You can talk about that place, and about how the bartender finds London. If the bartender is black or Asian and has an accent you cannot have that conversation, as they are very likely London born and bred, but of a family that has held onto a Caribbean or African accent. Your assumption that they are not Londoners would irritate them (as it would me).

Londoners find that Americans talk loudly (probably the result of living in the prairies!) so you will be more welcome if you keep down to other peoples’ loudness.
Please write again if I can help further.

Ben Haines
[email protected]

That's lovely, Mr. Haines.

Pub conversation faux pas?: At the Sherlock Holmes pub near Trafalgar Square, old gent at next table was asking young couple a series of Holmes trivia questions, most of which stumped them. I finally called out 'Mrs. Hudson!' when they clearly weren't going to come up with the landlady's name. He nodded and smiled politely, and then we ignored each other after that, my family keeping our voices low. I worry about these things later, and my daughters accuse me of a tendency to show off like that.

NeoPatrick, I'm thinking flanneruk exaggerated a bit in order to make a point, as you did. Would avoiding major tourist attractions really mean you couldn't stroll down the Strand, walk into a market or lounge in a deck chair in the park watching a soccer game? I assumed sakegrrrl meant they didn't intend to make a beeline for the Crown Jewels.

Actually in another post the poster did in fact say they are planning to "see the sites". Even saying "if possible" would seemingly indicate they'd prefer not having to travel the Strand, but if that was the only way to get somewhere -- so be it. I think she slipped on this post and gave us a very false impression.

I'm looking for my "exaggeration" that is anything like the one that claims "most" visitors are doing the things mentioned. That wasn't exaggeration -- it was just plain silly.

To be honest with you, if I were in a pub and a complete stranger came along and started joining in with my conversation I'd find it rather weird and intrusive. Brits are not generally that outgoing...

The only time I've known strangers to start talking to each other in pubs is when it was really crowded and we were all forced into close proximity/sharing tables. Not to say that it doesn't happen, but I can only really think of two occassions in my life, and both times were with involuntary 'table sharers' due to crowding. Once was with a couple of German tourists though and it ended up being quite an interesting chat.
I suppose that if you are desperate to get into a pub chat then the main point is to try and make it very natural - you just happen to be near that person and make an inconsequential opening comment and guage their reaction, rather than hovering by a chatting group deliberately.

Time for another link to

http://www.sirc.org/publik/pub.html

It sounds as though it's slightly tongue-in-cheek but it is written by a real life social anthropologist (and no doubt based on some serious participant observation). She's also the author of "Watching the English", which is almosy painfully insightful.

i've seen that pub culture guide before and it is so far from reality that it doesn't even make for a good spoof (although i do not think the authors mean it as a spoof).

most barmen these days are from eastern europe and have no awareness of british pub culture. if you are 'lucky' you might get a barman from a the british commonwealth (australia or new zealand). even this is becoming much less likely.

most central london pubs are populated by under 25s who are likely to be loud, drunk and extroverted. by extroverted, i don't mean friendly. they will be drinking budweiser, stella or an alcopop drink...probably never tasted a real ale...that's their father's drink.

one poster mentioned sharing a table with a group of german tourists. this is a german thing. generally britons would rather drink outside in the rain than share a table with a stranger.

one bad outcome of the forthcoming all-out smoking ban in pubs is that there will no longer be any non-smoking areas. today, pubs with a non-smoking section not only divide smokers from non-smokers but the uncivilised from the civilised. and i know there are many civilised smokers (i think they tend to sit in the non-smoking section and just go to the smoking area or outside to smoke). visit any pub with separate sections and you will notice a big difference in the behaviour of the punters. it will be unfortunate when these refuges disappear and everyone will be forced to intermingle.

What walkinaround describes is not so much the difference between smokers and non-smokers as between public and saloon bars; or more commonly between tenanted and managed pubs (particularly chains and wine bars). And of course Passport to the Pub hasn't been updated for some of those social changes in the last few years. But I know central London pubs that don't suffer from the alcopop and hooray henry brigades. I could tell you the names of one or two, but then I'd have to kill you. Besides, the whole charm of pubs is finding one you like and making it your own. One clue I'd suggest is to steer away from main streets and flash frontages around the main tourist spots, and look up some side alleys.

When I think about a pub or bar with a friendly environment, it's not with a wish to make my new best friend. Maybe cheerful attitude on part of the server, people around us having a good time, and everything doesn't go quiet and we get stared at upon entering.

In defense of my intrusion at the Sherlock Holmes Pub, I wouldn't have answered the neighbor's trivia question if we'd been at, say, The Red Lion. Holmes was my first big literary crush, and I was possibly overexcited.

"and everything doesn't go quiet and we get stared at upon entering." God that has happened to me a couple of times and it is awful.

In my experience country pubs (proper village locals not the 'by the A road family fayre' crappy ones) are 'friendlier' than town pubs.

This is a very difficult subject for we locals. There are loads of really nice pubs in London, some in central parts. But if we told you where they were , then they'd be full of tourists and we'd have lost them.

It's like a philosophical conundrum.

""and everything doesn't go quiet and we get stared at upon entering." God that has happened to me a couple of times and it is awful.

In my experience country pubs (proper village locals not the 'by the A road family fayre' crappy ones) are 'friendlier' than town pubs.
"

I used to live in a small village in Buckinghamshire, repleat with Village green and oldey worldy pub. I went to the pub maybe 2-3 times a week, chatted to the bar staff, joined in the pub quizes, you name it, and after five years I STILL got the silent staring treatment whenever I walked in. If you've ever seen 'American Warewolf in London', then just picture the pub on the Moors with the locals wearing that look that says 'yer not from round these parts'. In contrast, London pubs can be much friendlier!

audere_est_facere, I say keep the good pubs under your hat. It's more rewarding to stumble upon your own finds, anyway. Maybe someday I'll find one you don't even know about.

i agree that london pubs can be friendlier to outsiders as they are usually more used to different people.

for country pubs, look for the sign 'walkers welcome' this can be a good indication of a friendlier place that sees a fair amount of 'passers-by'.