London Weekend Break

Covent Garden

Covent Garden is large plaza area with a market, shops, arcades and frequent street performers during busy times. It is one of London's best known districts and is surrounded by the famous "theatre land" area with numerous venues for plays, the ballet and musicals.

Covent Garden is home to the Royal Opera house and is situated in the heart of the West End and has its own self named tube station. (This station has some restrictions and access to it is by lift only).

Covent Garden's original claim to fame was that of being England’s largest fruit and vegetable market, but today that side of its notoriety has moved to the new location of "New Covent Garden".

Other attractions have stepped in to replace the vegetables though and one of the most visited is the "Royal Opera House" on the edge of the square.

The Covent Garden building itself dates back to the eighteenth century and has always been a theatre venue of one sort or another.

Less formal and certainly cheaper than the operatic performances are those by Covent Garden's street performers. Covent Garden is the only district in the United Kingdom where street performers are legally licensed to mime, sing, dance or present any street side performance without a venue ticket being necessary. On weekends especially, some of these artists can be extremely entertaining.

Aside from near-by theatre land, Covent Garden also has a thriving social life of its own with many pubs, clubs and restaurants. It is also close to numerous other entertainment centres in "Leicester Square", most notably the big cinemas used for the premiers of new movie releases.

The nearest tube station is the aptly named Covent Garden.