{"id":500,"date":"2015-07-15T13:44:09","date_gmt":"2015-07-15T13:44:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/international\/?p=500"},"modified":"2023-08-18T12:26:55","modified_gmt":"2023-08-18T12:26:55","slug":"free-fun-things-to-do-in-london-barbican","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/international\/free-fun-things-to-do-in-london-barbican\/","title":{"rendered":"Free fun things to do in London: #2 Barbican"},"content":{"rendered":"

The first time I ever visited the Barbican Centre was in 2007, when I came to London to attend my sister\u2019s wedding. It is a special place for my sister and my brother-in-law. They met there for the first time while working together, so they decided to use the venue for the buffet party after the ceremony. It was mid-July and the summertime helped that beautiful day to be even more unforgettable.<\/p>\n

Now as a Masters student, I went there again a couple of weeks ago after visiting the Museum of London (by the way, an incredible place to learn more about the city\u2019s history and, best of all, for free! I will cover this museum in a future post.) and I had the opportunity to spend a little bit of time there and remember how beautiful that place really was. For those of you who haven\u2019t been there yet, it\u2019s a large cultural centre with restaurants, cinema, theatre, gallery and even an internal conservatory garden.<\/p>\n

Easily accessible by tube, the Barbican is a pleasant place to stroll around, relax and immerse yourself in culture and arts without paying much. You can\u2019t miss the Barbican station on Circle, Hammersmith & City and Metropolitan lines. If Northern line seems closer to you, then you can exit at Moorgate which is really close to the Barbican Centre as well.<\/p>\n

\"Barbican<\/a>
View from the pier<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I went to the Barbican around 6pm on a Monday, so unfortunately I couldn\u2019t enter the art gallery and check the Magnificent Obsessions exhibition as it was closed. Instead, I just walked through the Barbican and checked the installations. I first went to the Foodhall (level G) to buy some snacks and found it to be a deli\/caf\u00e9 with a beautiful lighting decoration and casual atmosphere that are worth checking out.<\/p>\n

As it was a sunny day, I happily spent some time on the pier looking over the lakeside and enjoying a delicious cheesecake and tea (almost like a British afternoon tea moment!). If you go there, you will see in the background one of the few medieval churches remaining in the City of London, St Giles Cripplegate<\/a>, which is located just across the lake terrace. It’s a wonderful view.<\/p>\n

\"Barbican<\/a>
Almost a British afternoon tea<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

After the snack time, I went to other floors and accidentally bumped into the conservatory area, a beautiful glass-roofed spot full of colourful tropical plants and trees. I found out later that it is the second biggest Conservatory in London according to the Barbican. It was definitely a good surprise for my visit.<\/p>\n

\"Barbican<\/a>
View of the Conservatory from the top<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Then, I took the elevator and went to the cinema and theatre floor (Barbican has a wide cinema complex with an external facility located on Beech Street), a large and cosy space with comfortable sofas, big screens and a classic atmosphere. I discovered that the cinema holds very good special offers, such as \u201cMonday Madness\u201d with tickets costing \u00a36 for regular movies (3D is \u00a38) and \u201cStudent Tuesdays<\/a>\u201d (hooray!) when students can watch any new film for \u00a35 (\u00a37 for 3D). If you fancy going, don\u2019t forget your student ID card!<\/p>\n

Overall, the Barbican is definitely a student-friendly environment as I saw many young people sitting there with their laptops or engaged in an informal meeting. The fact that the foyers offer a good free WiFi network is a big plus if you don\u2019t have 3G and need to connect. Also, for those who are 14-25 years old, Barbican has an interesting membership scheme called \u201cYoung Barbican<\/a>\u201d which offers discounted tickets for a wide set of activities at low prices.<\/p>\n

\"Barbican<\/a>
Plants on different floors of the Conservatory<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Concluding, the Barbican is a comprehensive cultural and artistic hub where you will always find something interesting to do without spending much money. There is always a new workshop, festival or special event going on, so keep an eye on the Barbican website<\/a> and enjoy!<\/p>\n

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In my next post, I will write about some good open-air street food markets I\u2019ve been to in London and why they’re worth visiting if you enjoy different cuisines and tastes. Stay tuned!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The first time I ever visited the Barbican Centre was in 2007, when I came to London to attend my sister\u2019s wedding. It is a special place for my sister and my brother-in-law. They met there for the first time while working together, so…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":164,"featured_media":503,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,10,14,15,18],"tags":[59,74,75,151,285,424,649,653],"class_list":["post-500","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","category-favourite-memories","category-london","category-music","category-student-experience","tag-arts","tag-barbican","tag-barbican-centre","tag-cinema","tag-free","tag-london","tag-student-discounts","tag-student-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/164"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=500"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7089,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500\/revisions\/7089"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/503"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=500"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=500"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}