i'd been waiting for ages to get down to portobello road market, but i never seemed to be free on the saturday - which is when the market is its largest & busiest. it's at notting hill, in west london. i had to do a bit of guesswork to find it, because my map of london didn't quite reach as far portobello road. luckily enough, there were streams of people flocking to the market, so i followed in their general direction...
the market is made up of both a trillion different stalls along the road, as well as permanent shops lining the street. a bunch of these are antiques shops, for which p/bello road is probably most famous. the market brings everything to life though, with quite literally everything that comes to mind when you think 'market' - & then some. there were lots of vintage & second-hand silver jewellery stalls (at which i couldn't work up the courage to barter down the price of a silver chain bracelet with a heart lock) as well as old (& oooooold) books. there was even a whole collection of suitcases filled to the brim with old photographs of people & places. i took home with me a postcard-sized black & white photograph of trafalgar square - something to stick up on my wall as a nice memory of london..
further along into the market were collector's items (mini household objects, toy soldiers, dated cars, etc), old film cameras & lots of stalls selling everything leather. portobello road stretches a long way (the length of notting hill, north-south), and by the end my legs were about ready to drop off. luckily, here was where all the food stalls were. i devoured a delicious falafal wrap, and honestly - who can say no to a nutella crêpe?
fun fact: george orwell lived in one of the brightly coloured houses along portobello road in the late 1920s.
i also managed to visit harrods today - london's famous department store, on knightsbridge. they had a display similar to that of the myer windows in melbourne - dedicated to the royal wedding. with hundreds of windows to fill, they covered everything from cakes (all the top designers created their own celebratory wedding cake), to 10's of different weddings gowns, to photos of all the royal weddings that have taken place in the past two centuries. i never realised princess di's sleeves were so huge.
when i finally reached the end of portobello road (which is to say the bottom of notting hill), i asked one of the market stall owners where the nearest tube station was (i was about 5cm to the left of the edge of my map = not helpful). the closest was the one i had come from... so the day ended with me hiking back up notting hill, and tubing it home: extremely exhausted - but so happy to have spent the day here on portobello road.
today was one of my last in london. the next couple of days will be spent packing up all the things i've collected over the past few weeks & somehow trying to fit it into my pack.
paris, here i come!
S.
further along into the market were collector's items (mini household objects, toy soldiers, dated cars, etc), old film cameras & lots of stalls selling everything leather. portobello road stretches a long way (the length of notting hill, north-south), and by the end my legs were about ready to drop off. luckily, here was where all the food stalls were. i devoured a delicious falafal wrap, and honestly - who can say no to a nutella crêpe?
fun fact: george orwell lived in one of the brightly coloured houses along portobello road in the late 1920s.
i also managed to visit harrods today - london's famous department store, on knightsbridge. they had a display similar to that of the myer windows in melbourne - dedicated to the royal wedding. with hundreds of windows to fill, they covered everything from cakes (all the top designers created their own celebratory wedding cake), to 10's of different weddings gowns, to photos of all the royal weddings that have taken place in the past two centuries. i never realised princess di's sleeves were so huge.
when i finally reached the end of portobello road (which is to say the bottom of notting hill), i asked one of the market stall owners where the nearest tube station was (i was about 5cm to the left of the edge of my map = not helpful). the closest was the one i had come from... so the day ended with me hiking back up notting hill, and tubing it home: extremely exhausted - but so happy to have spent the day here on portobello road.
today was one of my last in london. the next couple of days will be spent packing up all the things i've collected over the past few weeks & somehow trying to fit it into my pack.
paris, here i come!
S.
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| heaped-up paint |
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| crazy café with photos of diana completely covering the walls, tables, chairs, mugs, etc. |
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| some old-school french grammer? love how the verb 'to suffer' looks like 'to fuffer' |
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