– Portobello Market sign – pretty houses (mine will look like this one day!) – musician busking – Goldsmith’s vintage – old books – vintage cameras – Alice’s Antiques – Olympic & Paralympic flags in Covent Garden – street performers in the square –
As well as enjoying the spirit of the Olympic Park at the Paralympics, I also spent some time with my family exploring London itself. I was surprised to hear that despite having lived there for a while when I was a toddler, my parents had never ventured to Portobello Road.
My fashion blogger senses kicked into high gear here and I was pretty excited to explore. Portobello is located in West London in the Notting Hill area. Near to such up-market neighbourhoods as Kensington and Chelsea the area was, of course lovely to walk around. I lusted and fawned over the pretty painted houses along the first part of the road before finally hitting the market streets.
Portobello Road Market is a decent mix of good ol’ British market stalls, cool vintage and second hand items. The streets are lined with antiques stores and stalls selling everything from jewellery to painting to crockery. I even spotted a giant mounted moose head in one of the shops. Part of the road is taken up by a generous helping of food and produce stalls selling freshly made goodies to munch on whilst you trawl on up the road.
The fashion is what draws in the hipster crowds with small boutiques and vintage stores further up the road. The street culminates in flea market stalls, selling at charity shop bargain prices – I’m talking three tops for £2 at one stall. Of course the trick is spotting the gems, which is possible should you have enough time to trawl the whole day (which I unfortunately didn’t).
The rest of our day was spent in one of my favourite places in London, Covent Garden. It all Olympic flagged up when we arrived and we took a break to enjoy the street performers and gorge on some crepes.
I was a little sad to head back to our hotel knowing that was our last day there, though Wagamama’s in the evening certainly made up for it. I’ll definitely have to have another head round (hopefully when the weather’s nice and dry) to have a proper dig around.
Keep on wishing…
R.xoxo