Portobello Road And Bits of Kensington and Nottinghill

After 20 months of this you'd think we'd know better. Better how to calculate the effects of COVID on sights, crowds, markets, and so on. But then I nearly always forget to take my mask to the Waitrose down the street and have to come back for it. We'd had some good experiences on Portobello Road in the past--fun, if not great purchases--and wanted to try it again. We did, and, of course, were disappointed. After 20 months of COVID, the merchants have had little opportunity to acquire new goods, and the public are still not out shopping such places. We did the length of Portobello Road, gave up, and then meandered into and through some of Kensingston and Nottinghill. Not our best day, but still a few pix worth recording.

Food Court; every cuisine represented; no one was hungry

Some of the side streets were more interesting; color-coded, too,
unlike most of Kensington

By noon, things were picking up, a bit

Vicki's the only one in this store of jewelry stalls wearing a mask

We're done and moving on

I always thought mews had something to do with cats

But I know now that mews are former alleys, courtyards, with
accommodations for horses and their grooms, buggies, drivers, and
other caretakers, upstairs, now converted to million dollar studios
and one-bedroom apartments...with garages

Monotonously beautiful

Fencing around the private park on the square; with
flying buttress

An entire square of these, four streets surrounding the park; each
identical

Beautifully monotonous

Nice park, though, award-winning

No riff raff, however

We stopped to briefly gawk at Kensington Palace

Statue of William of Orange, a gift from the Kaiser to the King,
1907, back when they were close personal buds

Then, after passing through Kensington Gardens, at last our day
was done

But with ill portents looming...

Walking Around In Leicester Square, Mayfair, Grosvenor Square, Regent St.

Even on days with major destinations we do a fair amount of just walking around, sometimes exploring, sometimes just misinterpreting Google Maps. On July 30 we finished the Sainsbury Wing at the National Gallery earlier than expected and decided to just walk around the West End...

Shakespeare looks on, musing upon the difficult plague times
he faced, when ticket sales weren't going so well

And watching Harry at Quidditch

After a wet month in London, I now understand
the umbrella thing

At one of the Lego stores

Rachel note; after the cleaning, they'll have to
re-do it in cream-colored bricks

We prefer our Chinatowns in Asia

We probably won't do a play, due to COVID concerns, but this
would have been a prospect; as well as many others

Don't see many of these anymore

Oxford Circus

On Savile Row

Royal Academy of Arts

Nearby, of course

Neither our first nor last visit to Grosvenor Square

During the war, the Brits referred to Grosvenor Square, where
Eisenhower's HQ was (and the American Embassy) as 
Eisenhowerplatz; not entirely sure this was good-natured

More musical fame; somehow we have wandered into Westminster

Claridge's, I think

Yes, Claridge's; we thought about going in for drinks...

But didn't: unlike California, people here wear
more than t-shirt and jeans

Across the street: "There are no calories in kisses"

Moveable bachelorette party

We finished up at Hamley's toy store on Regent St. 

If not the world's oldest (1760) nor largest, then
certainly the most crowded; last time we were there
was 2013, with toddler Penelope...that was a challenge!

Harry Potter And The Bowels of Fire

The plan for the day was to walk to Kings Cross station, do the Platform 9 3/4 thing, then Tube to Leadenhall, another Harry Potter site, both in the interest of our grand-daughter, Penelope, who is now a serious student of the lore. Then, and thus in the center of The City, we would look around and see what else was of interest. No plan survives first contact, according to Rommel, and sometimes, I admit, our "targets of opportunity" approach actually fizzles. But not this day. The title will become clear as our story unfolds.

Inside Kings Cross; maybe not as you'd imagined it

Extremely famous site (actually part of the adjacent

Potter store; like Mordor, you can't just walk out onto the 

platforms...); we had read that you can expect up to 

a 20 minute wait, en queue, for your photo opp here

But that was pre-COVID, and it was still in the
AM, and so we walked right up and did the pix;
alone and unmolested

Adjacent is one of the larger Potter shoppes we have seen

Wand selection

Leadenhall market, scene of Dragon Alley; not ancient,
but pretty old...14th century origins, but the current get-up
is decidedly Victorian

The only store that actually interested us; here we stimulated
the local economy and later enjoyed the bellotta along with some
manchego and cava; la vida es buena

Then you turn around and look up and you're
confronting one of the masterpieces of Bowellism

The Lloyd's Building; aka the "Inside-Out" building

Designed by Richard Rogers ("Some enchanted
evening..." wait, no...), who also did the Pompidiou
in Paris

Bowellism, a variety of structural expressionism, is said
by some to have originated with Gaudi [really??]; I actually
like this stuff, although I am not sure it supports the stable
and conservative image that banking and insurance
companies like to cultivate

This is how close it is to Leadenhall

Spare parts

Apparently their policy doesn't cover climbing accidents

Most interestingly, Lloyd's moved the facade of
their older (1928) building so it could be the 
entrance to the new tower; look in through the doors
and you'll see bowels

Nice nod to history, tradition, I thought

Turn around again, and...if you like historical and
architectural contrast, London is hard to beat

Disused toilettes in the middle of the street
(discreetly underground, of course)

And the now fiery bit: this is Wren's Great Fire
Monument, 202 feet high, and 202 feet from the
bakery, on Pudding Lane, where the fire broke
out on the night of September 2, 1666; so I have
been wondering: where was Wren on that fateful
night? He is known to have enjoyed puddings...
does he have an alibi? Airtight? Prior to the fire,
he was merely a lecturer in anatomy and astronomy
at Oxford, making frequent trips to London for science
club meetings...Who, other than Wren--who
subsequently designed the new St. Paul's and
some fifty other rebuilt churches--benefited more
from that fire? Just wondering...

The Monument's official inscription

Helpful translation for those of us who don't read Latin anymore
and are not giraffes; the operative bit at the bottom describes the end
of the fire: "...the fatal fire stayed its course and everywhere died
out. *(But Popish frenzy, which wrought such horrors, is not yet
quenched.) *These lines were added in 1681, and finally deleted
in 1830." The Fire destroyed much of The City but did not advance
toward Westminster; 13,000 homes and many businesses, churches,
and public buildings were destroyed; an obscure teacher of astronomy
at Oxford, of Royalist stock, with no previous architectural
experience, was given responsibility for much of the rebuilding...
hmmm

We crossed the bridge for better views of the river and HMS
Belfast, now guarding the Tower Bridge so it won't be sold to
Arizona

Also the Tower; but with many pressing questions on our minds
we returned to Handel St.