Today starts at Notting Hill Gate Underground station. Notting Hill is of course home to Europe’s largest street festival which occurs all the way along Portobello road and the surrounding streets on bank holiday weekend in August. During normal weekends though, Portobello road is home to the Portobello markets, which contain a wide variety of stalls lined along the streets selling all kinds of things. There are a lot of antique traders here and the area also has a few record shops. Honest John’s records, which sources diverse, hard to find music from around the world is at the Northern end of Portobello road and Rough Trade West (the original Rough Trade store / home of the Rough Trade record label) is on nearby Talbot road. This store still has an independent vibe and feels a lot more authentic than Rough Trade East.
Just up from Notting Hill are Kensington Gardens. Kensington Palace was the birthplace of Queen Victoria and the home of Princess Diana. It is a really nice park with lots of people out and about enjoying themselves. There are quite a lot of tourists around by virtue of the Princess Diana memorial.
On the other side of Kensington Gardens is Kensington High Street, a nice high street full of big name boutiques and a very large Whole Foods Market store, which sells all kinds of great organic foods.
