I had a much-needed Monday off work towards the end of February. My good friend Enid and I had been planning a day out for some time and had been aiming to go to Oxford. However, due to various train booking sites malfunctioning over the weekend, we had to change our plans. We both love this fascinating, sprawling, multi-cultural metropolis so it wasn't difficult to make a last-minute alternative plan B.
The train booking problems resulted in a happy outcome for us because we ended up visiting a part of Hackney that I wasn't familar with, but had heard a lot about. Hackney is a huge borough, of course, and I've explored various parts of it, but Broadway Market was a 'new' discovery for me in my ongoing love of exploring London.
Broadway Market is a long street full of low storey Victorian buildings which house a wide range of independent shops, cafes and restaurants. We had taken the 26 bus from Waterloo, which stops not too far from Broadway Market. We headed straight up to the top end of the street, beside London Fields, so that we could stroll back down and take everything in.
The first place we noticed was Wilder Botanics, a gorgeously stylish little shop filled with exquisite handmade products. We were given a very warm welcome by Yuko and had a lovely chat with her, including (me being me) talking about bees.
I was very taken with the products in the shop and bought this lovely rose and vetiver organic facial oil and a box of beautifully scented hibi incense from Japan.
Our next stop was for lunch. There's so much choice that it took a fair bit of window menu browsing to decide where we wanted to eat. We settled on Cafe Route, where Enid chose the Route Beef Burger and I had the Vegan Kofte from the extensive menu. The cafe has a lovely decor and layout and the food was absolutely delicious. I will definitely be going back there again in the near future.
After lunch we wandered south down the street and stopped off at Figs and Grain, where I bought some organic beetroot powder, my favourite Taifun Organic Tofu Rosso (really hard to find in London these days) and a box of CackleBean eggs - the nicest box of eggs I've ever seen in my life.
Next, we picked up the canal and walked towards Islington. I know Regent's Canal quite well but hadn't walked along this particular section before. Enid got her eye on a very cute houseboat painted in red, green and yellow and decided she'd like that one please.
Around 1.5 miles into our walk, it started bucketing down with rain so we had to abandon our plan to reach Islington. We came up off the canal at one of the bridges and by amazing good fortune there was a bus going back to Waterloo.
I'm looking forward to going back to Broadway Market again very soon - especially on a Saturday, to take in its famous street market.
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Blog copyright Barbara Grehs
Published on 6 March 2022
#hackney #broadwaymarket #wilderorganics #hibiincense #caferoute #figsandgrains #canals #regentscanal #houseboats
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