What a week! Busy and relaxing at the same time.

The girls were out of school this last week. It’s half term and all of the English school children are out on school holiday. Usually we travel somewhere far for the whole week but this week, due to hubby’s work schedule, we went for a weekend getaway instead to London.

We’ve been to London many times but never to stay the night. Also, as often as we’ve been up there, we’ve never strolled through Notting Hill. We’ve been close (Hyde Park) but not Notting Hill itself.

On this occassion we drove into London. Usually we’d train in or park in the outskirt and take the tube but since we were staying the night, there’s a decent priced car park near the apartment and our apartment was just steps away from the congestion zone, we took the car. Two days parking cost us £29! I know, insane. BUT, still cheaper than us taking the train or parking on the outskirt and taking the tube. Plus it was an experience driving in London (although to be fair, driving in London isn’t as bad as driving in Paris or some other major cities if not during rush hour).

Anyhoot, we parked our car at the Baywater Car Park. £15 for 12hrs. And this was about five mintues walk from Notting Hill Gate. Soon after we entered the area we were greeted by beautiful homes. Colorful home. So so pretty!!

 

 

Of course a trip to Notting Hill wouldn’t be perfect without visiting Portobello Street with its vibrant street performers, hundreds of antique stalls and the many dozens fruit, veg and food stalls. There was a bit of something for everybody, even in the rain!

Talk about colors! There were colors everywhere. The houses, the street performers, the stalls. Colors. Were. Everywhere!

For lunch we had Malaysian. At the end of Portobello St is Makan Cafe. It was about 1pm when we got there but we were able to grab a table and had a relaxing and spicy meal. YUM!! I could have stayed there all day and slowly eat through the afternoon but I knew that it wasn’t sensible and so we moved on. Jovie though didn’t eat much at the cafe. She said her noodles were too spicy. All of us but Jovie are used to really spicy food and when we tried her noodles, we didn’t taste any spiciness. BUT, Jovie said it’s spicy and what Jovie says goes when it comes to food. She quit eating and after the restaurant we found her a hotdog stall. Somebody was one happy camper after that.

We do though have this habit of zipping into another cafe when the weather’s not that great and a few minutes later we ended up at the Kitchen and Pantry. We tried going to other coffee/pastry shops but they were all full. We just got lucky here. Coffee was great but bathroom was filthy.

I left the family at the coffee shop so that I could snap a few street photos. The rain was on and off and I didn’t want the whole family to just wander around aimlessly in the rain. Aren’t the street scene beautiful? The weather’s been really mild here and the flowers are already starting to bloom.

 

The antiquing was a bit disappointing (just a lot of the same stuff it seems and London/tourists prices) but the charm of Notting Hill made the visit so worth it. I’d love to come here again when the weather’s nicer. Not so much for Portobello Street but for the architecture and to check out more of the local shops and cafes. There’s a cookie shop I want to take the girls to next time, Biscuiteers. It was actually just down the road from our coffee shop. But everywhere was so packed that day.

Before I go, let me leave you with one more photo.

This car! LOOOOOVE!!