This past Friday I met up with one of my friends from University of Maryland who happens to be studying in London too! Hailey, Keni and I set off to explore Portobello Road Market and Kensington Palace. The weather here has been beautiful recently, and Friday was a sunny day and did not feel like winter at all. We got to the market and within probably 10 minutes I found a stand selling really cute little bracelets, so I of course couldn’t resist buying one. There were a bunch of stands selling produce and food, and Hailey really wanted to try a blood orange, but alas, the vendors only sold them in packs of 6 and wouldn’t give her one orange. Sad. One of the stands was giving out free samples of their food, so we were able to try rhubarb crumble! I don’t know why, but I have always had this desire to try rhubarb crumble, so I was weirdly really happy that I was able to try it at the market. It tasted pretty good! I had read about Hummingbird Bakery on Portobello Road, so when we passed it we had to go in and get one of their goods. Keni got a slice of cheesecake, Hailey got a beautiful cupcake and I got a slice of their rainbow cake. This slice was huge and I ate the sliver of red and some of the orange, but I had seen pictures of this cake on instagram and of course when we got to the bakery no one had bought a slice yet so I wasn’t able to see the picturesque array of colors within the cake, so I bit the bullet for everyone else and purchased the first piece. It was very pretty and did not disappoint. So many of the buildings on Portobello Road are absolutely gorgeous in color, ranging from yellow to pink to purple to you name it. It was like instagram central on that road. While we were leaving the market, we passed by George Orwell’s home and Keni spotted graffiti on a building and it turned out to be Banksy! So that was cool.
We made our way to Kensington Palace and we walked down Kensington Palace Gardens, a street that I remembered walking down with my family two summers ago. I vaguely remembered my uncle telling us that many of the people who lived there were ambassadors or something like that, and I just checked on Google and fortunately I remembered right and didn’t mislead Keni and Hailey. (Thanks Uncle Dave). According to Wikipedia:
“Kensington Palace Gardens is a street in west central London with some of the most expensive property in the world. It was the location of the London Cage, the British government MI19 centre used during the Second World War and the Cold War.
A tree-lined avenue half a mile long in the heart of embassy land, Kensington Palace Gardens is often cited as the “most exclusive address” in London, according to real estate agency Knight Frank. It is one of the most expensive residential streets in the world, and has long been known as “Billionaires Row”, due to the extreme wealth of its private residents, although in fact the majority of its current occupants are either national embassies or ambassadorial residences. As of mid-2012, current market prices for a property on the street average over £122 million.”
You aren’t even allowed to take pictures while walking down the street, but that definitely is the way to go if you want to see some impressive homes.
Kensington Palace currently has this exhibition called “Fashion Rules” and it features dresses from HM The Queen, Princess Margaret and Diana, Princess of Wales. I loved it obviously and I also enjoyed looking at the vintage Vogue covers they framed on the walls. At one point Hailey asked one of the security/info. men in the room some question about the Royal Family lineage, and boy was he happy that someone asked a question and he was able to impress us all with his detailed knowledge of Royal Fam history. We got a very thorough history lesson and we left feeling glad that we were able to make this guy’s day who probably just stands there all day not talking to anyone. I looked for Kate, George and Lupo in the park around the palace, but alas, they weren’t out for a stroll that day.
meg takes london 
Sounds like a great day. I can’t wait until we have Spring here! I am so glad you are having nice weather 🙂 Leave it to you to be scoping out those bakeries! haha We will expect to make a few stops ourselves in March! I also loved reading about the guy sharing his info on the palace. Too cute.
xo
I know it was too cute….he talked for so long. We were like he clearly was so happy to have someone ask a question haha 😉
Those photos you posted of the houses are some of the prettiest I have ever seen! So charming! I also liked the part about the guard answering your question; now you’ve got me thinking that I should remember to do that in the future and potentially make someone’s day! LOL
I agree they are just too, too pretty!! I had to contain myself taking pictures haha. And oh I know, it was too funny but we were certainly impressed with how much he knew about the family lineage/dates/etc.!