Today I start in Mayfair, the neighborhood where the Bridgertons live, again with a pub, Mr Frogg, it seems decorated for the series as it looks so beautiful, colorful and full of flowers.
Next to it is the cute Avery Row, with lovely shops and cafes. It was in Richard Green’s building where Lord Nelson lived while he recovered from his injuries.
Bond St, a main shopping street that links to Conduit St, where the Middletons lived in the novel “Sense and Sensibility” by my beloved Jane Austen, and N Audley St where you will find attractive shops, The Ivy restaurant and the Mayfair Chippy, one of the most famous fish and chip restaurants.
Wall to wall is the church converted into a food market, the Mercato Mayfair, a ground floor with a great offer, a first floor with bars and cocktail bars, and a basement with its own distillery. Of course it’s pet friendly, so an olé for them.
New Bond Street is next to the popular Bond St. There are beautiful streets such as Mount St. and parks that are worth walking through, I invite you to get lost in them. London has many beautiful neighborhoods.
Marylebone is one of them full of pretty streets, in front of Manchester Square park we find a large palatial mansion that houses the Wallace Collection. Its visit is free and there I enjoy antiques, art, sculpture and even armors in the basement. It also has a restaurant in its covered patio.
Marylebone High Street is home to several treasures for avid readers, such as the star of the neighborhood, Daunt Books, one of my favorite bookstores in the world, is gorgeous. Today is packed with readers looking for books, a very good sign, I buy myself two.
Next to it is the house where Elizabeth Barrett (1806-1861) and Robert Browing lived, when they married in secret. She was a poet, free thinker, feminist who campaigned to abolish slavery and to legislate child labor, who bewitched the great writer with her works, the most popular being Sonnets of the Portuguese or Aurora Leigh. Two of Browning’s most popular works were Dramatis Personae and Men and Women.
In 2 Devonshire Place is the House of Artur Conan Doyle, who in addition to being a writer was an eye doctor and this is where he had the practice, it was also the place where he wrote the first two installments of Sherlock Holmes.
Nearby is 221B Baker Street, which surely rings a bell, yes, it’s where the famous detective lived, now it is the Sherlock Holmes Museum, it has a charming façade that I love, on the ground floor is the store and where you buy the tickets, upstairs is his home, which he shared with Dr. Watson. It was very exciting to see it. He was quite messy hence we find knick-knacks in every corner.
Fun fact: 187 Baker St is the branch of Lloyd’s Bank, the same one that suffered the famous robbery on September 11, 1971. The perpetrator was inspired by one of the Sherlock Holmes adventures. There’s a movie about it The Bank Job, starring Jason Statham.
I cross to neighboring Fitzrovia and pay an underground visit to a very fun and perhaps somewhat scatological place, it is a café inside … a public urinal! Yes, yes, a toilet. The Attendant Coffee Roasters is a lot of fun, very clean and tiny where I had some hot chocolate. Sometimes I’m not surprised when friends ask me, but where do you find all these places? ha ha ha.
A few streets away is the beautiful Fitzrovia Chapel, an unconsecrated chapel that will leave you speechless. It was part of an old hospital and its interior is golden and is one of the most beautiful things I have seen lately.
It opens on Wednesdays at 11, so while I’m waiting for it to open I visit the All Saints church which has a beautiful architecture, and is even more appealing inside.
I find another Dickensian scenario or maybe it’s a Sherlock Holmes scenario? Newman’s Passage, a back alley that in other times might have been the scene of some hiding place or even some murder.
I cross through a mini tunnel that links streets and I find paradise in Italian Bear Chocolate, they have an option called, death by chocolate, which says it all.
Nearby there are several pubs all of them beautiful, I’d loved to see them, but this time I go to the Sanderson hotel, following Elena´s @orangepassport recommendation, she is a super fan of Alice in Wonderland, and guess what this hotel offers, an afternoon tea with Alice theme. You can have tea with themed cups and teapots and children can even dress up, it’s all good fun.
Today I could recommend the books I mentioned in the post but, I’m going to choose something more actual, like “The Last Bookshop in London” by Madeline Martin. London 1939, Grace and her friend arrive in London from a village, whilst Europe is being invaded by the nazis. While her friend starts working at Harrods Grace will get a job in a bookshop, only for a few months until she gets a letter of recommendation she needs. What she doesn’t expect is to become so fond of reading, books will unite her community during the Blitz, when London is cruelly bombed.
