Autumn leaves crunching beneath my feet, light rain smattering wet droplets on my leather outer. Can you imagine how happy I was to see the ‘travel bookstore’ with a blue door on Notting Hill?
Mostly I was busy snapping pictures, head in the clouds, wishing I could step into a bookstore and meet my personal Hugh Grant.
William: I live in Notting Hill. You live in Beverly Hills. Everyone in the world knows who you are, my mother has trouble remembering my name.
Anna Scott: I’m also just a girl, standing in front of a boy, asking him to love her.
The romantic comedy still gives me the chills! Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant has this electrifying chemistry that not a lot of onscreen couples (or real-life ones for that matter) have quite managed to produce.
So here I am, my camera not quite capturing the charm of Notting Hill. Its exquisite nature doesn’t scream urban city or first-world sophistication. What I love is its tame English elegance – a popular setting for numerous films and novels.
Comprising Ladbroke Grove, Portobello Road, North Kensington, Westbourne Grove and Notting Hill Gate, Notting Hill is essentially a large district that an afternoon of exploration on foot is not gonna cover.
A Singaporean Chinese Restaurant! Gosh 😀 a piece of home
And here I encountered Patisserie Valerie
Also, I found what I was looking for: Book Warehouse and Waterstones.
FYI Novels by G.K. Chesterton (The Napoleon of Notting Hill), Colin MacInnes (Absolute Beginners), Michael Moorcock (the Jerry Cornelius quartet), RC Sherriff (The Hopkins Manuscript), and Alan Hollinghurst (The Line of Beauty) have exclusively featured Notting Hill.
As did the films The Knack …and How to Get It (1965), Performance (1970), with Mick Jagger, Notting Hill (1999) and Lava (2003).
Am ending off this post with Ronan Keating’s hit. I love the feels that the song brings.
I’m a ’90s kid and this is so nostalgic.
Viktoria Jean 
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