Hi friends, welcome back to my Paris and London Anniversary series 🙂 I can’t believe it’s finally time to share the last day of the trip!! At this point I was ready to be back in my apartment with my kitchen, rehydrate and eat healthy, but not ready to be done travelling and exploring. I think every day of our trip was so different that it didn’t feel too long. All the walking was definitely catching up to us, but we were determined to make the absolute most of our last day! Originally we were going to watch the changing of the guards at Buckingham, but with all the craziness of the upcoming Jubilee and seeing the streets blocked off, we smartly decided to reverse our schedule.
We grabbed coffee from Watch House and walked to Piccadilly Circus, Oxford, and Regent Street for the classic tourist photos that I’ll share in a future post. It was nice going earlier in the morning so the streets were pretty empty. The tube station we needed was conveniently located on our route, so we hopped on and headed to the posh Notting Hill neighborhood.
Jon and I wandered down Portobello Road to explore the Saturday market with eclectic antiques, souvenirs, and food stalls. Nothing sparked joy in any of the booths, so we kept on walking.
I googled the most popular streets and we wandered through the neighborhood taking in all the colorful homes.
I must admit, we have not yet seen Love Actually, but we did stumble upon the famous pink house on St Luke’s Mews.
This neighborhood was made famous by another movie I somehow haven’t seen, Notting Hill. (I have some movie watching homework to do) We did not come across the famous blue door of Hugh Grant’s home, but we did enjoy wandering the picturesque streets.
Notting Hill has lots of great restaurants, but we had a pretty full day of sightseeing, so we went to Knoops Chocolate Shop for some delicious dark chocolate milkshakes. This spot was recommended to me by a foodie friend and wow, these were amazing and I wish they had a location in NYC!! You can pick how chocolatey you want your shake and I think we got the 80%. After walking four miles already, this was the perfect spot to rest and enjoy our final moments in London.
Stayed tuned for our time exploring Kensington Garden and Palace.
Posts in my Paris and London Anniversary series:
Paris
- Day 1 – Saint Chapelle, the Concierge, and Notre Dame
- Day 2 – Palace of Versailles
- Day 2 – Versailles Garden
- Day 2 – Touring the Versailles Summer Homes
- Day 3 – Louvre Museum
- Day 3 – Champs Elysees & Arc de Triomphe
- Day 4 – Montmartre & Sacre Coeur
- Day 4 – Musee d’Orsay & Crepes
- Day 5 – Luxembourg Gardens & Eglise Saint-Eustache
- Day 5 – Going up the Eiffel Tower
- Day 6 – Rodin Museum
- Day 6 – Palais Garnier & Galleries Lafayette
London
- Day 7 – Westminster Abbey
- Day 8 – Tower of London
- Day 8 – Tower Bridge & St. Paul’s Cathedral
- Day 9 – Windsor Castle & St. George’s Chapel
The houses are so bright and colorful! I love it!
Such a fun neighborhood to stroll through!
Sometimes the best plan is to just wander the streets and see what you can see. We too were underwhelmed by the Portobello Market. Likely due to seeing all Borough Street Market had to offer. Love the colorful fronts on the flats. Its kind of like visiting Newfoundland. Glad you had a great time in London Lyssy. Thanks for sharing., Allan
I agree, that is also one of the reasons why I love living in NYC. Borough Street Market had a lot better options. I didn’t expect it to be so big! The colorful homes are so fun to wander through. We really loved London!
Another great share!! As someone who likes junk and old things, I used to love Portobello Rd market but have not been for many, many years.
Thank you! One man’s junk is another man’s treasure right 🙂 you just never know what you can find!
Ha, that is true! 😉
I’m looking forward to visiting Notting Hill! The movie is one of my favourite 90s romantic comedies so I’m going to look for that blue door 😛
I’ll live vicariously through you visiting the blue door 🙂 It’s such a cute neighborhood!
When we lived in London, we were between Hyde Park and Notting Hill in a very typical London garden square. I just loved living there as there was so much on our doorstep and it was so easy to walk everywhere.
Such a nice area! You didn’t happen to live on Kensington Gardens did you? That street was pretty impressive, but a bit intimidating. 🙂 I would love living in London.
No, Cleveland Sq https://viewfromtheback.com/2018/03/04/40-years-of-memorable-moments-bayswater/
What a beautiful place to live!
We did love living there, right in the centre of all the action. However, we much prefer where we are now.
I’ve been to London many times but never explored Notting Hill, something I need to sort out! Love the colour and life of it all. Gorgeous set of images but that one of the flower stall really caught my eye. So charming!
Oh yes you would love exploring Notting Hill! Such a charming neighborhood with so much to see and eat too. The flower stall was so picturesque!
The houses around Notting Hill looks so beautiful. The colorful ones look so bright and happy, but they are all gorgeous. The milkshakes seem like a pretty sweet and delicious way to end the day!
It’s such a picturesque neighborhood! The shakes were so delicious and the perfect pick me up!
Thanks for the visit. In all my visits and stays in London, I have never been to Notting Hill. It’s always on my list, but there’s always something more attractive to see. Your photos are quite convincing though.
You’ll have to go to Notting Hill next time, we probably only spent an hour wandering through but got to see so much. I also wanted to see Kensington Palace, so it was easy to see both because they’re so close. I agree though, it’s so hard picking which things are a priority to see!
I quite like a wander around Notting Hill admiring the colourful houses and architecture but the market there isn’t really for me. These chocolate milkshakes look delicious though Lyssy.
Notting Hill is so beautiful to wander! If I lived in London I would avoid the area on Saturdays. The milkshakes were excellent!
This brings back some not-so-long-ago memories. We loved exploring Notting Hill, taking shots of the colourful houses, finding all the film locations, murals and just enjoying the street vibe.
Wandering through Notting Hill is so fun. There is so much to stumble upon. I’m going to watch all the movies before I make it back to London one day 🙂
It’s such a colourful and fun area – it’s the NH Carnival today which is always an event 🙂
I’m going to be in London in 2 weeks – going to see if I get time to check out Knoops!
I hope you do! Have a milkshake for me 😋
I LOVE the movie Notting Hill and Love, Actually is my favorite holiday movie (though I will admit I didn’t like Love, Actually the first time or two that I watched it). This post made me smile just because it reminded me of Notting Hill so much.
Now I really need to watch those movies!! I’m so glad this post made you smile 🙂
You really should watch “Notting Hill” and then let us know how accurately the movie portrayed the neighborhood. You’ll see almost none of the residential area (Hugh Grant’s apartment is just steps away from his business). But it’s a fun story and cast if you’re into rom-com’s – my favorite film of Grant’s and one of my favorites of Julia Roberts. Not surprised to hear Portobello Road was a quick pass-through. I’m sure the vendors cater to tourists these days instead of offering anything of interest. The movie “Bedknobs & Broomsticks” (a Disney film from my generation starring a young Angela Landsbury) had an entire song and scene from Portobello Road, which came back to me in an instant when I saw the photos.
I am very into rom-coms so I know I’d love it. My mom claims there’s no way I haven’t seen it, so maybe when I was like 5 it was on in the background 🙂 I am sure there were a few hidden gems in the market, but we didn’t want to spend our vacation looking for them ha. Bedknobs & Broomsticks looks cute.