We love the RV1 bus! Connecting Southbank and Covent Garden

For those of you who haven’t discovered this little treasure, here is a bus that trundles regularly between the Southbank just near Waterloo straight into the heart of Covent Garden. It’s for those of you who can’t quite make up your mind whether you want to spend the evening by the South Bank riverside or in the midst of London life in Covent Garden. Or if, like me, you want to be greedy and do both.

Take the other evening for example. I met my friend near Waterloo as it’s where my train arrives and a short walk from her home in Borough. After struggling to get past the crowds spilling onto the pavement at The Fire Station, we had a quick mojito in Cubana in The Cut to start our evening before wandering up to a couple of old favourites –Meson Don Filipe restaurant opposite the New Vic and Baltic (Russian and lively) on Blackfriars Road. We deemed both to be a bit dark for such a lovely evening so agreed to go for a riverside walk.

We passed Gabriel’s Wharf and had a cursory look at the menus for Gourmet Pizza and the French bistro Riviera and continued on our way towards Tate Modern. But we dallied for a while at the Founders Arm pub and discovered the delights of Pims ready mixed (we had born sworn beforehand that only lovingly hand made mixes would pass our beautifully glossed lips – women are known to be fickle).

Whilst we had already decided that we weren’t quite up to the Oxo Tower (and we used to go there often) we were tempted by the wonderful interior and Japanese delights on offer at Bincho Yakitori and the new Italian (where Neat used to be) tamesa. We will return to try these out in due course…

So, we returned to pretty much where we started near The Imax and cast a cursory eye over previous haunts Chez Gerard (perfect for Steak Frites), Arch Duke (great music) and Pizza Express. And then the RV1 roared into view. And off to Covent Garden we went with Oystercards at the ready.

By now we were starving (and thirsty) and made a bee line for another old favourite – Bertorelli’s in Floral Street. Well, when you absolutely have to know that it’s going to be good you need to go somewhere comfortably familiar. Anyway. We then went in search of a gelateri for ice cream and coffee and failed to come up trumps (any ideas anyone?) so we joined the noisy throng at Cafe Rimini where the football played on a screen quietly in the corner. Satisfied with our excellent coffees and extremely calorific but wonderful cakes we wandered back to catch the RV1 back to the Southbank.

We love the RV1!

:applause: