Camden Market, London
Nihan Uğurlu · Keyfi Yazılarım ·
Travel memories from 2015. Hours and prices may change; check official links before visiting.
Personal travel notes, discoveries along the way and photographs from the original story.
Camden Market
Believe me, Camden Market is one of London's most unusual places :) You will see fascinating people, accessories, food, clothes, venues, pubs and all sorts of other things. I didn't have especially high expectations, but it turned out to be quite the opposite. Punks and rockers on the streets, biker shops and clothes, tattoo studios and piercing places: you won't want to leave. It is extremely crowded and can feel overwhelming at times, but it is worth it.
Camden Town
It is a wonderfully wild place. On a first visit, the conversation goes something like: 'Look, his whole face is tattooed!' 'Never mind that—look at his hair, it's like a rocket!' 'And that person has about 48 safety pins through their eyebrows!' After ten minutes, the surprise wears off and it all starts to feel perfectly normal. It becomes addictive, too: you want to spend more time there 🙂
There are piles of very cheap clothes and bits and pieces, not always great quality, and inexpensive old records. We loved exploring it. It has such a different atmosphere, and you feel free there.
Regent's Canal
Camden Town was also known for Amy Winehouse, whom we had lost a few years before this visit. She had a house here, loved the area and used to perform here. The photograph shows Regent's Canal, with Camden Market to the right: a huge, busy, bewildering place with food from different countries, jewellery, clothes, pubs, restaurants and more.
When we saw the Turkish chicken skewers in the photograph, we couldn't resist. There wasn't much Turkish food, and this was the only place that looked right to us. A couple of other stalls were making a strange minced-meat dish I had never seen anywhere and labelling it 'Turkish food'. They called it a Turkish wrap: mince cooked on a griddle and wrapped in flatbread. Out of all our dishes, this was what they had chosen! I couldn't understand why we seemed so bad at showing people the full richness of our food.
This is a shop with a rather different concept. Yes, a shop—not a bar 🙂 At first we thought it must be a bar or something else, because music was blaring out and women in leather outfits were dancing inside. But it was a clothing shop, with unusual, glittery, rock-style T-shirts and other clothes. Inside it was dark, with strange lighting. We barely escaped 🙂
