Peacocks and Pastries

Portobello Road Market was amazingly crowded this afternoon,

and we very slowly made our way down the street as the wares changed from antiques to fruit and veg to clothing to goods of the car-boot-sale type before the crowds thinned out and we felt like we were just in regular old London again. We turned down this street, surprised to find that we were so close to Trellick Tower, an iconic London landmark that we visited back in September.

I quite like the way this mosaic spills over the entrance to this flat:

When I told Bob about my Portuguese treat at Borough Market yesterday, he was understandably miffed that he too hadn't been able to walk down Porto memory lane, so today we decided to check out this stretch of Golborne Road, known for two Portuguese bakeries with a bit of a rivalry: Cafés Lisboa and O'Porto. With the latter meant to be slightly cheaper and with more seating, we felt we had more than enough reason to remain loyal to our beloved Porto.

Even with a decent amount of seating, the place was packed out, and with the familiar narrow counter filled with pastries and some images of Porto decorating the room, we felt like we had walked all the way to Porto!

When it was our turn to order, Bob tried out those familiar coffee words that we had used over and over in Porto, um pingo and um meia de leite, much to the delight of the man behind the counter. We chatted with him for a bit about how much we loved Porto and he asked if we had visited one of his favourite parks there, which we had, which made him doubly pleased, as he said that many people seem to visit Porto and not get over to that part of the city, which he thought (and we agreed) was a shame. The place was so crowded that we couldn't get a seat, so we stood at the counter and enjoyed our coffee break:

Sadly, while the coffees may have been called by the same names as our Porto coffees, we agreed that they just weren't the same magical concoctions that we savoured during every Porto coffee break. Only in Portugal, I guess! As we finished our treats, the crowd started thinning out and I smiled when I saw the familiar sight adorning the back wall of the café:

At this point, we decided to walk in the general direction of Holland Park, and see what we could see along the way. We ended up passing a cute pup,

the 1925-32 home of writer Siegfried Sassoon,

and a charming, music-themed address marker

before arriving at the park. I wanted to see the park peacocks, but we haven't been to Holland Park that many times, and I couldn't remember where we saw them last time. Bob thought he remembered, so we headed over that way. As usual, his sense of direction was perfect.

We had walked quite a bit by this point, and sat for a while in a lovely corner of the park

before returning to the street, where we passed the second blue plaque I'll show you today, on the 1931-33 home of composer Benjamin Britten: