Weekend walk: Little Venice to Southall, along the Paddington arm of the Grand Union canal Distance:

Weekend walk: Little Venice to Southall, along the Paddington arm of the Grand Union canal Distance: 12 miles canal, 13 miles total Time: 4 hours canal, but add extra for pubs & curry. Lovely walk this weekend on the invitation of Suzy Corrigan, my most Minnesotan friend (who nonetheless knows London even better than I do - eh?) Instructions: 0. Pack supplies. This walk is a weird sort of periurban and mostly occupies a no-man’s land of warehouses, golf courses, and NO DAMN PUBS. Suzy had packed sandwiches and two pieces of blueberry poundcake each, baked fresh that morning. I was super grateful. 1. Take the tube to Warwick Avenue, then walk down Clifton Villas towards the canal. Pop into Clifton Nurseries to get flat whites and whatever extra cake supplies might be required. Marvel at West London 30-something couples and how they can afford to be brunching in this neighbourhood. 2. Hit the canal at Little Venice and start walking west. Inhale the good smell of wood smoke from the narrowboats’ wood burning stoves. 3. Landmark: the Westway. The curves of the road are - yes - almost elegant. 4. Landmark: the Trellick tower. Reminisce over an ex-boyfriend who used to live there. 5. Look at the ice at the sides of the canal, fragmented but not all melted. Look at the coots and their stripy feet. 6. Landmark: to the north, Kensal Green cemetary. One of the world’s first garden cemetaries and “the most fashionable burial ground in Victorian England”, it was opened in 1833 - “consecrated by the Church of England, but reserving the eastern spur for Dissenters and others to practise their own rites”. (website) 7. Landmark: to the south, Old Oak Common railway depot. Beyond that, Wormwood Scrubs park, and prison. 8. Next, warehouses. You better like that sort of thing if you go on this walk, because it’s most of what you see. I don’t know West London at all, and was surprised to find that it wasn’t all suburban housing and in fact looked quite a lot like the River Lee canal walk, only less wondrously bleak. 9. Pub! The Grand Junction Arms on Acton Lane. Its main merits are being un-scary plus decent outdoor seating. The other side of the road, note the 1990s hippy mural about the joys of PCBs. 10. Duck under the North Circular road (the A406) and come to the crossways (cross-rivers?) where the Grand Union canal meets the River Brent. The Ace motorcycle cafe is just up that way, and may have to be visited. Apparently another pub around here too. 11. Warehouses and suburban housing in Alperton and Perivale. Every house has a substantial shed in the garden, some with guttering and Sky TV. We are in prime “beds in sheds” territory. 12. Sudbury Golf Course. Toto, I don’t think we can be in London any more. (Apparently we are.) 13. At Ballot Box Bridge, we’re briefly joined by the Capital Ring walking route, a 78 mile loop of London. Between Perivale Wood on the south and Horsenden Rec to the north, it feels green here. 14. Warehouses in Greenfood. Smells of baking and Indian chutneys. Somewhere around here, a cormorant. 15. Landmark: the Mohammedi Park masjid (mosque) 16. By Ruislip Road Bridge, we hit new development - new apartment blocks, desirable “waterside living”. An slight increase in urbanness. Signs that the canal has stopped fleeing west out of London, and is now orbiting around it. 15. Uxbridge Road bridge. End of the canal. Go and eat until we’re stuffed at Gifto’s on Southall Broadway, for delicious Pakistani food. 16. Head towards Southall station to get the train home. 40 minutes until the next service to Paddington, so we stop in the South Indian vegetarian restaurant Saravana Bhavan for masala tea. I want to come back here for the £7 thalis. 17. Landmark: the Gurdwara Sri Guru Singh Sabha, a Sikh temple. 18. Home. Map courtesy OpenStreetMap and the Sports Tracker app. -- source link

More pics about