Pubs on Pubs- One of our last weekends in London

Our last few weekends in London are winding down, and we couldn't be more sad that we are leaving this wonderful city. So today's post will be about London.

We had friends in town this weekend, and so we tried to balance a good bit of seeing the big tourist sites, with plenty of local London activities.

We started off the morning with a proper English Breakfast at one of our favorite spots in London, The Roastery - which ironically enough is not British, it is actually owned by Kiwis. The Roastery has less than 10 tables, serves organic sausages from Moen & Sons butchers, and the creamed mushrooms are the best in town. Plus, as the namesake indicates, they house roast their beans.

After breakfast we went to Borough Market, which is a food market near London bridge with endless vendors of fresh vegetables, butchers, cheese mongers and various street food vendors. We picked up a few dry ciders to tour the market with.

After the market we went to Liverpool Station and walked along the Southbank of the river, past the London Eye and across the bridge to House of Parliament, Big Ben and Buckingham Palace.

After a solid 6 miles of walking we decided to take a load off at one of our favorite Irish pubs - Waxy O'Connor's, near Piccadilly Circus. Waxy's serves one of our favorite beers, Caffrey's, which is a red ale that is very hard to find here in England. I always describe this pub as an underground tree house. The pub has three levels, four bars and many small nooks whereby friends can sit and chat with one another for hours on end.

The Lamb & Flag was our next stop along our pub crawl. This pub is a proper English pub that is known to be frequented by Charles Dickens. Although this pub is always very crowded, we were able to find a quaint table in the back to talk with our dear friends.

After being in the city for most of the day, we decided to head back South, to a neighborhood nearby our flat, Brixton. Brixton is a very multicultural area with a variety of restaurants typical of the areas residents such as Pakistani, African and South American. Brixton is also home of the Electric Avenue which is was the first road to have street lights in London, and is also the namesake of the song by Eddie Grant, Electric Avenue.

We made reservations at a Spanish tapas restaurant, housed in the crypts of an old church, Gremio de Brixton. The front of the basement is a really energetic bar with barely any lights, club music, and all the single people in London. The four of us waited in this area until our table was ready. Thankfully we already knew who we were going home with that night, as we had not gone home to clean up from earlier in the day, so we were not dressed to the nines as the other people in the bar.

Once we were seated, we ordered a bottle and perused the menu, which was surprisingly short but comprehensive. We ordered Patas Bravas, Grilled Tiger Prawns, Valencian Meatballs, Suckling Pig and Octopus. The Patas Bravas was fantastically spicy with a nice creme fraiche to offset the spicy brava sauce. We also tried the lentils and chorizo which was fantastic as well.

We very much enjoyed our time at Premio de Brixton, and finished off our night with a mini pub crawl in Old Town, Clapham. We went to a very eclectic pub called the Prince of Wales, and finished the evening at our favorite local - The Rose & Crown.

On Sunday we walked around Shoreditch, explored the Spitafields market, and had lunch of fish and chips at Poppies.

We will miss you so much London, thank you for being such an eye opening experience for Brett and I.

Mary