Alternative London Tour

The bright and colourful East End

I never imagined in a million years some of the great opportunities this blog would open up – and meeting a bunch of expat bloggers has certainly been one of the highlights to date. It was thanks to Jen of She went away that I joined their facebook group and a whole new world, ok, a whole new day trip and a pub quiz so far, opened up for me. My first outing with them? The Alternative London Tour.

I had absolutely no idea to expect from this but I came away from it having learned an incredible amount about my community that is the E1 postcode and a new appreciation for street art.

Turns out this was by Banksy (taken on a previous outing near Brick Lane)

More Banksy

We were met by Ben Slow, one of the local street artists, responsible for this picture:

Artist and his friend, the owner of the wall~

He was charming, funny and extraordinarily knowledgeable. He appeared to know many of the artists whose work features on spare walls and doors around Brick Lane and Shoreditch. I learned more in my 2.5 hours with him than I have in the many years I live lived in the East End. He really knows his history and his anecdotes, but enough of me rambling on – other bloggers (Jen and Emm) have done this so much better than me already, so here are the rest of my pictures:

Street art on Brick Lane comes in all shapes and sizes – I loved this tiny unicorn perched on top of a street sign.

Street art in its many forms

Shoreditch badger

An acknowledgement to the Olympics

The tour group~

The beauty of this tour is that you can pay what you like, meaning that people on any budget can join in. One blogger in the group had actually one this tour three times already and said she kept coming back because it was different every time as the art is constantly changing – street art isn’t meant to be permanent. I would definitely do this again if I had visitors in town and am already considering paying the £15 to do a four hour bike tour of the East End, the home I love so much.

And I know you’re gagging to know this – I paid a tenner, I felt that was a reasonable price for access to someone who really knows his stuff and has the charisma to keep you all engaged. Time Out says it’s one of the top 5 tours to do in London and I most certainly am inclined to agree with them.

My favourite – teeny tiny street art on Fashion Street