Covent Garden Piazza

As I've been working in London for 15 years now I've experience much a street scene on my walkabouts. I would have to say that if you want to visit somewhere novel and a place the oozes character Covent Garden is the place to be. Even if you're not into shopping there you can sit and feast on a fantastic ice cream (not sure about the breast milk) or sip on a glass of vino in the Punch and Judy whilst watching a brave street performer juggle knives on an uneven surface.

Covent Garden is a great place to take prospective customer or business partners as there is something for everyone from a short walk away from seeing, as I did, Louie Spence leaping, twirling, purring and pirouetting with exhausting enthusiasm to a a cocktail in Roadhouse whilst watching live Jazz.

Entertainment at your fingertips, enjoy people!

I wanted to like Covent Garden , I really did – but I really don’t . It has to be the most crowded place in the city . You can’t walk or move without being under someone’s feet , or on walking into someone else . There are shops but nothing of interest to me . The buskers make the crowds gather into awful bottle-necks . Its terrible , passing through here makes me want to go into Starbucks , find a squishy chair – and never leave again . The only good thing about Covent Garden is the Christmas display . That does tend to be worth seeing .

When I was young and reckless..not that I have changed..I often stood at the tea bar at Covent Garden, after clubbing, waiting for the tube to start. Now I maybe go to wander round stalls, come out of Lush smelling like a whores handbag or watch the buskers (often getting dragged in..must be my face) butlast time I wanted Tower Street. No one knew where it was including stall holders but one had a free booklet on the area that he gave me and I found it. It also made me look at the architecture. (OK I AM odd).

The centrepiece of Covent Garden, Inigo Jones’s Market Piazza was built in the 1630s and it was soon surrounded by a varied array of neighbours. Many of the erections you can see here today are original buildings although there are also many newer buildings as older ones have been ravaged
variously by fire, the weather, the Luftwaffe and zealous property developers.

Many of the country’s most famous architects have designed buildings around the area: Christopher Wren, Norman Foster, Edwin Landseer, Nicholas Hawksmoor… the list goes on. The best way to appreciate the splendour of the architecture is to take your leisure and amble around the sights, many of the most stunning examples are open to the public so you
can also appreciate the sumptuousness of their interiors.

Much of the beauty of Covent Garden is in the infrastructure of the streetscape, there are many different influences from architectural design fashions from five different centuries.
Like his father, Charles I had a keen interest in architecture and he recognised that, although London had many fine churches and palaces, municipal and procedural buildings were as nothing compared with the elegant structures in the rest of sophisticated Europe. It was this monarch who set about making Covent Garden and London a showcase of fine style, a crusade which has been subsequently adopted by landowners and architects.

Note the stunning and suprising new alongside the old too.