Marylebone High Street Brunch

After a long walk through the consumer paradise of London’s Regent Street and Oxford Street, and an extensive browse of designer fashion at Selfridges department store, we decided to escape the hustle and bustle. We followed Baker Street north, then turned onto Marylebone High Street. There you’ll find small but very appealing shops – fashion, design, or books. For the latter, the amazed traveller will discover the famous travel bookshop Daunt Books, whose Edwardian gallery is reminiscent of a classic library.

Eventually, our feet grew heavy, and we were drawn to the Coco Momo Cafe, which offers a good view of the street from its panoramic windows. An excellent and extensive breakfast provided the necessary sustenance for our onward excursion to the Saturday Portobello Road Market in Notting Hill.

Already at the tube station exit, we realised from the crowds that this wasn’t such a good idea after all. Ever since the 1999 film with Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts immortalised the lively, cosmopolitan district, Notting Hill has been anything but a secret. But since we were already here, we made our way past colourful house fronts (behind which, at No. 22, George Orwell once lived), but soon turned into one of the side streets. There, pretty, well-maintained houses, typical examples of the Victorian or Georgian era with bay windows, cornices, columns, and stucco, line up next to each other, about whose price I can only speculate.

More pictures from London in the Great Britain Picture Gallery.