Introduction to St. Albans

St. Albans is a small city in Hertfordshire, England. St. Albans takes it's name from the first saint of England, actually a Roman soldier named Alban who offered his life in exchange for the priest being spared, who is said to be buried in a shrine beneath the Abbey Cathedral.

In addition to the Cathedral there are ruins of a Roman theatre, a surprisingly good Roman musuem at St. Michaels, and The Waffle house which, on a sunny day, can get extremely long queues due to it's great location in St. Michaels Village on the edge of the park.

The thousand year old market, which is open on Wednesdays and Saturdays year round, brings relief from a shopping district that has little to set it apart from that of the next town. There is also a monthly farmer's market. Parking can be found in several NCP parking garages but on a nice day they can become full.

Albanians, as the residents of St. Albans are known, are often said to have a pre-occupation with house prices. It's no wonder. The price of property in St. Albans is nearly on a par with those in London, making this one of the more affluent places in the country. Along with several central conservation areas consisting primarily of Victorian homes, there are also a growing number of developments in or near the city centre offering flats and outside the city, in places like Jersey Farm, are many suburban style developments consisting primarily of single family dwellings.

St. Albans is also home of the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) so it's no surprise that our Lord Mayor got himself into trouble after drinking too much last year and that our city has, apparently, the most bars and pubs per capita of anywhere in Europe. There are some great neighbourhood pubs as well as quite a number of city centre bars. Come visit on a Friday night and you'll see plenty of scantilly clad underage girls chatting up bouncers to get into one of them. And when you're done, you can get a bag of chips on London Road and throw your used chip wrapper at the foot of my street. Everyone else does.