Upper Street has always been Islington's spine and its problem — too many restaurants, too little personality. This walk starts just off it and quickly escapes into the back streets that the neighbourhood is actually made of.
Camden Passage on a Saturday morning is one of London's best markets. Chapel Market, a few streets west, is one of the last genuine street markets in inner north London. Canonbury Square is the quietest detour — Orwell was here, and the square still has the slightly austere quality his writing describes. The New River Walk follows a 17th-century water channel turned parkland. Highbury Fields is the ending: large, uncrowded, and with a café that does a reasonable flat white.
