It’s less than three weeks now until I give my talk about our journey from commercial management tools to open source nirvana at MacADUK - and whilst I’m very excited about the conference and all the fantastic speakers, I know some of you are equally as excited about visiting London. So, here’s my pocket Mac Admin’s guide to London (views are my own etc etc)
Getting around
Once you land in London (Heathrow, probably) you’re going to want to get into the centre. Use the train - if you get a car, you’re going to be stuck in there for an hour or two, depending on where you’re staying. I would suggest getting the Heathrow express, which drops you at Paddington. From there you can hop onto the Bakerloo line and get into central London. If you’re staying in the docklands area for the O2 or Stratford, you can get the Jubilee line at several points.
Speaking of the tube, use it! Don’t get a paper ticket though. If you come from a civilised country that issues contactless credit cards, you can just use that at the barrier. You can also use Apple Pay for most foreign banks. Failing that, you can pick up an Oyster Card at most stations and cash it in at Heathrow on your way out.
If you’re staying at the O2 and are thinking of visiting Maritime Greenwich, you should look into the Thames Clipper, which goes up and down the river semi regularly (or just get an Uber - just don’t walk as it’s really not a nice place to be walking around at night).
Where can you get a beer
Whilst there are plenty of bars in the O2, they’re all chains serving yellow water that pretends to be beer. For a good beer, you are going to need to get into a train.
Saturday
Saturdays are special in London. Two of the main beery attractions are only open on Saturdays. The first of those is where I will be spending the Saturday before the conference - Beavertown. They’re open 2-8 PM and you’re going to need to hop onto the Victoria Line and get off at Tottenham Hale. The other option involves more walking - it’s the Bermondsey beer mile.
What about the rest of the time?
London has one of the best beer scenes in the UK. Some of it is even pretty close to North Greenwich. Here’s a list of some of my favourites:
Stratford
Bethnal Green
Euston Station
London-wide chains
What to eat
London obviously has some amazing restaurants, but a couple of things I’d say you shouldn’t miss out on are The Rib Man (rib meat rolls and some of the best hot sauce on the planet) and our national dish - curry. There are plenty of places that are good along Brick Lane, but my favourite is Aladin.