What to see for free in London

LONDON IS STILL the most popular destination of Northern Ireland's ever-growing citybreak market, in spite of easy access to places like Barcelona, Prague, Amsterdam and, er, Middlesborough (which I'm unreliably informed is fun).

My recent family weekend in the capital was as brilliant as the spring sunshine that bathed its famous monuments in a golden glow. For a start, I found a really great hotel. I also rediscovered the delights of my long-standing favourite treasurehouses like the British Museum and National Gallery as well as one new to me -- Camden Market.

All three of these attractions have the big bonus of being FREE admission -- a distinct advantage in a city where a 'flight' for a family of four on the London Eye can cost over £50 and the only thing really shocking and scary about a trip to Madame Tussaud's chamber of horrors is the price (£116 for combined family ticket with London Eye).

I recommend, therefore, that you go to London's many free visitor attractions and splurge your savings on decent accommodation. OK?

My problem used to be finding a London hotel which was central, comfortable, friendly, full of facilities AND affordable. That's why I was delighted to discover the Marriott Hotel Regent's Park.

It's actually in the sedate suburb of Swiss Cottage, not far from the Tube station and a short £3 cab fare to the chic bars and restaurants of Primrose Hill. I really took a fancy to this ultra-trendy -- but unspoilt -- 'village' where terrace houses cost £2 million but restaurant prices were less than in Belfast!

As it happens, we were so exhausted by sightseeing that we took most of our meals in the hotel's own Mediterraneo Restaurant, where we ate very well for under £20 a head. A pre-dinner swim in the lovely pool helped freshen us up and add an edge to our appetite.

As its name suggests, the restaurant specialises in Italian-style food with lots of fresh pasta dishes, high-class pizzas and a short but impressive menu of innovative dishes featuring British beef and lamb, chicken and really tasty duck. The cosmopolitan waiters and waitresses were friendly, efficient and well-trained as you would expect from the up-market Marriott brand which has a world reputation for excellence. The lively Chats Bar also has a bar menu for light meals and snacks.

Guestrooms are currently being refurbished as part of a huge renovation plan that is transforming the interior while causing the least possible distruption to guests.

Sales and Marketing Director David Thomas told me: "We are upgrading everything in line with the higher and higher expectations of our guests. We have prioritised the guestrooms, and are providing spacious rooms graced by amenities both pampering and practical - from luxurious new bedding to wireless Internet access."

David is a very nice quy, proud of -- and excited by -- the quiet transformation of his hotel, as are all the front and back of house staff I encountered.

One of the unexpected bonuses for my footballing grandson Simon (7) was the overnight presence of the Newcastle FC squad in London for a Premiership game. He collected 22 autographs from good-natured players even though they knew he hadn't a clue who they were. He is now their biggest fan...

Check out Londonmarriottregentspark.co.uk for deals and Special Offers

Great pix -- from negative to positive

BEST EXHIBITION I've seen in a long time, Forty Years of Press Photography in Northern Ireland, has been packing 'em in to the new-look Ormeau Baths Gallery (OGB) for the past few weeks.

Hundreds of pictures by members of the NI Press Photographers Association (NIPPA) have been an eye-opener to younger gallery-goers as many pix vividly portray the most appalling events of our infamous Troubles that older people here would rather forget.

Thankfully, there are lots of other softer, more positive, images which chronicle everyday life and laughter as we move 'Out of the Darkness', which is the apt title of this stunning show.

One of these pleasant pictures happens to be Trevor Dickson's award-winning picture of me sharing wide grins with The Queen during her 1997 Jubilee Garden Party in the grounds of Hillsborough Castle.

It was pointed out to me by NIPPA Chairman John Harrison, the greatest photojournalist ever to come out of Ballymena. He also presented me with an inscribed copy of the splendid book/catalogue which features most of the show's most memorable images. This is still available for £10 at OGB, and it is worth it for John's masterly foreword alone. As I go to press, I'm not sure when the exhibition's extended run ends.

During my years as Editor of the News Letter and subsequently as a freelance writer, it has been my privilege to work with many of the fine professionals whose photos are showcased here. They include Stanley Matchett MBE, one of my most cherished friends; Alan Lewis, who would risk his life for a pic; Fred Hoare, Kelvin Boyes and John Harrison himself.

The show inevitably reminded me of other snappers now passed on to the Great Darkroom in the Sky -- Manxman Cyril Cain, gentleman Brendan McCann and my much-lamented colleague Robert Hamilton, with whom I shared a Brooklyn bedroom during an hilarious assignment in NYC.

The crowds have delighted Marian Clark de Monreal, the new broom at OGB, who is another of my old chums. She has made a huge contribution to the success of the Arts Council's rescue operation which has saved its flagship city centre Gallery from dying a death due to the former ill-judged avant-garde exhibitions that were far too 'avant' for the old 'garde' (like me). Now I try to get to every show.

Follow in the footsteps of Presidents

ON THE SUBJECT of Hillsborough Castle, I'm trewly looking forward to my favourite annual event , Garden Show Ireland which is to be held there on the weekend of June 8-10.

As well as enjoying the many highlights of the Show within the Walled Garden, visitors can explore the main gardens of Hillsborough Castle no extra charge.

Organiser Claire Faulkner -- who introduced me at last year's wonderful Show to my horticultural heroine Charlie Dimmock -- says on the website gardenshowireland.com:

"Having played host to many esteemed guests over the years, including past US Presidents and key government figures, not to mention the Guinness Book of Records largest rhododendron bush in Europe, the grounds of Hillsborough Castle are indeed a magnificent setting for this horticultural extravaganza."

One small correction, Claire: George W Bush is, alas, not a "past" President. I have an archive photo of him in front of me with Prime Minister Tony Blair strolling alongside that massive rhododendron which was in full flaming red bloom to greet them on April 7, 2003.

Claire Faulkner would be too modest to mention that her father, the late Northern Ireland Prime Minister Brian Faulkner, was one of those "key government figures" who would have been familiar with the grounds of Hillsborough Castle which has served as the official residence of successive Governors and Secretaries of State for Northern Ireland.

Friendship and Trust

ANOTHER RECORD-BREAKING season is in store for the National Trust, which continues to give more pleasure to more people in this country than any other organisation I can think of.

When I went to live in the USA a few years ago the only things I trewly missed were BBC Radio and Mount Stewart Gardens. Now I can listen to The Archers and Good Morning Ulster on my laptop anywhere in the world, but there's nothing, absolutely nothing, to match the uplift I get from my monthly stroll around the Lake Walk at Mount Stewart.

I now share that dander -- as well as all my regular visits to other National Trust landscapes and mansions here and across the water --with an ever-increasing number of people, thanks to good marketing and improvement of facilities.

With membership now up to 48,000 and a record 1.75million visits last year -- that's equivalent to one day out per head of population here --the charity plays a vital role in the educational / cultural / leisure / heritage of Northern Ireland .

It employs 170 permanent staff and 250 seasonal workers and invests around £6.5m a year in the local economy. More than £2.5m is being invested this year in refurbishment of key properties, a half-million in Belfast's landmark Crown Bar alone.

No wonder Hilary McGrady, vivacious Director for Northern Ireland, was in buoyant mood at the annual Press Launch in the somewhat austere surroundings of Baby Grand, the new bar area of the Grand Opera House extension.

However, over a 'poke' of fish 'n chips ( actually, this being the National Trust, they were elegant plaice goujons) Hilary told me that the regional deficit was still worrying her.

"Although it's down from £1.5m to around £1.3 million, our costs are escalating all the time," she told me. " We are committed to looking after our properties in perpetuity, yet conservation costs rise faster than inflation every year. We rely on membership subscriptions, donations and legacies from supporters to ensure sure we can fulfill our promise to look after special places for ever, for everyone."

Alas, she graciously turned down my offer to organise a whip-around among my pals in the Press present -- including multi-media man Ian Hill; travel author and journalist Geoff Hill; Fiona McIlwaine-Biggins, formerly of this paper; and that doyen of radio reporters, Paddy O'Flaherty.

I'm sure I could have talked them out of AT LEAST 50p each...

End this butchery of our bream!

MY MENTION OF Paddy O'Flaherty (above), who is often to be heard on Radio Ulster reporting on angling, reminds me of an issue that needs to be given constant publicity -- the deliberate destruction of our coarse fishing stocks.

When I was asked to compile the NI Tourist Board's Guide to Coarse Fishing in 2001, our rivers and lakes were still full of fish, attracting thousands of angling tourists from all over Britain and abroad. They caught the fish, put them into a keepnet, weighed the total catch at the end of the session and returned the fish alive and unharmed to the water.

Nowadays, recently-arrived migrants from Eastern Europe are fishing for bream, roach and pike not for sport, but to eat and sell! They ignore the rules about putting sport species back in the water.

An angling friend emailed me with this horrific story:

" I have just spent a Saturday as the only local person fishing the

Lower Bann alongside four car-loads of Eastern Europeans. All the roach and bream they caught were tossed on the bank to die and then taken away in plastic bags.

"I reported it to the Bann Systems and the Conservancy Board, but they

told me the water baliffs are now having to wear bulletproof vests because of threats from knife-wielding migrant workers and their advice is not to challenge them, because many of them are ex-Soviet forces and undoubtedly carrying knives, if only to gut the fish.

"It is a really big problem not only here but more especially in the

South where some lakes have been decimated."

It occurs to me that if car-loads of migrants were butchering wild ducks and geese from our equally-important wetlands , the RSPB -- biggest membership organisation in the UK -- would put a stop to it in no time.

Is it time we had a Royal Society for the Protection of Freshwater Fish with a Provisional Wing to push poachers into the water?

CULINARY NOTE: I'm told bream and roach taste of slimy mud which is why nobody here eats them and they were even rejected by starving peasants as a source of protein during the Great Famine. Pike are too boney to bother with, and eels are very hard to handle.

However, I once confessed in TREW'S TRAVELS that I had barbecued a couple of fat perch I caught in the Erne, but it's much too late to put them back...

Too late for a latte

HOW ON EARTH can Belfast claim to be one of the most vibrant tourist cities in Europe when nearly all the city centre cafés close at five o'clock? I could not find ONE proper coffee house open on a rainy afternoon when I desperately needed a tall latte to warm me up. It's ridculous that 5.15pm is TOO LATE for a LATTE. The city centre management should be promoting more cafés as well as bars to join in their "5pm-7pm"campaign.

FREE MARKET: This is just one tiny corner of sprawling Camden Market, one of London's top FREE attractions, where I spent most of an exciting if exhausting citybreak Sunday. Designer clothing, cheap CDs, antiques, collectibles, ethnic art, rugs, tatty souvenirs, a million tee-shirts, transvestite costumes, sex toys, food and drink, you name it, it's there. Watch this weird world from a table on one of the canalside pub terraces overlooking Camden Lock.

MARRIOTT MAKEOVER: One of the smart new guestrooms of the Marriott London Regent's Park at King Henry Road, Swiss Cottage. I was one of the first guests to experience the new standards of stylish comfort which are quietly being achieved throughout the hotel which is an excellent base from which to explore London.

TREWLY REGAL: This is a detail from 'Royal Jester', the 1977 picture I saw for the first time in 30 years at the Press Photo Exhibition. That's me with hair and funny 70s specs to the right of the Queen. My former News Letter colleague Trevor Dickson won an award for it -- one of many bestowed on him during a distinguished career cut short by a near-fatal road accident. Her Majesty is laughing at a stupid remark I made when I was presented to her as News Letter Editor. When asked how many daily copies we sold, I blurted: "About 75,000, but there will be far more sold tomorrow, because pictures of you, Ma'am, are better for circulation here than Page Three Nude Models." I should have been beheaded...

DOUBLE BUSH: President Bush meets Rhododendron Bush while walking with Tony Blair in Hillsborough Castle gardens, scene of the forthcoming Garden Show Ireland. Picture courtesy of The White House.