"This is Notting Hill, one of my favourite corners of London, and like the regular markets in England, they sell all kinds of well-known vegetables and fruits every day. The drunken man who came out of the tattoo shop but couldn't remember why he stabbed 'I love ken', the avant-garde hair stylist made everyone who came out of the shop look like a cookie monster, for no reason, regardless of others, whether they liked it or not. On weekends, hundreds of vendors suddenly fill the streets, and tourists, hawkers and street performers from all over the world can't wait to meet here and stage a weekly weekend drama. The best part is that there are a lot of friends who also live in this London neighborhood, like Anthony, who became a chef from an architect and recently opened a restaurant with all his savings, and that's where I live day in and day out..." Here's a line from the movie Notting Hill.
In the movie, when the male protagonist slowly walks through the bustling market with his hand in his pocket and a sad look, the background changes with the four seasons, which makes countless young girls intoxicated and obsessed, and the background of this fairytale love movie is the largest market in London: the portobello market.
The image comes from the Internet
Located in the west of London, Notting Hill is a very bohemian place and one of the richest areas in London. Portobello Market is the most famous market in Notting Hill, with markets spread over portobello road. Probably because notting Hill is inhabited by the middle class, the portobello market is less hippie and more of a high-class fragrance than the civilian brick lane, and the rows of neat and clean Victorian houses stand on both sides of the market, and there are a row of colorful houses that are particularly eye-catching.
Portobello market is a photo album of the development of the United Kingdom for hundreds of years, is the epitome of British history, culture, art, life, if you love vintage love the taste of the baptism of time and love all the objects with a story, then you will inevitably fall in love with the portobello market. As the world's famous antique market, it is also the largest antique market in London, and it is crowded every Saturday, attracting visitors from all over the world.
Who loves to come here? One is a person who has a retro plot, loves antiques, and comes to Taobao; one is a kind of wenqing who has fantasies about love and has a serious literary and artistic plot, and comes to visit the footprints of "Notting Hill"; and the other is of course a foodie who comes to enjoy food from all over the world. I, on the other hand, am a collection of three kinds of people.
The market generally opens at 9:00 a.m., in order to avoid the peak period of crowds, you can reach the market at 8:30, the market at more than 8:00 has been bustling with merchants to start setting up stalls, there is not much crowd on the market, the merchants have enough time and patience to accompany you to joke, explain, and even allow you to bargain. For antique lovers, this is definitely heaven, of course, here to find treasure, you need an incomparably benevolent patience, plenty of physical strength, a three-inch tongue for bargaining, and a golden eye to identify the true and false.
Antiques sold here include antique furniture, a variety of silverware tableware, antique toys, cameras, CDs, records, books, paintings, and a variety of vintage items can be found here. The oldest of these antiques can be traced back to the Victorian era in the 17th century, and there are many second-hand rare treasures of indistinguishable age, as long as you have enough patience, you can even find Chinese blue and white porcelain, Ming and Qing Dynasty paintings and so on.
Second-hand ancient books are also a major feature of the bazaar, including parchment scrolls that are hundreds of years old, as well as travel diaries written by ordinary people with a history of more than 100 years. The price of these books is also based on the degree of newness and oldness, and the older the more precious.
Of course, there are genuine and fake antiques here, and how to identify them requires certain cultural knowledge and professionalism.
There's no need to be interested in antiques and there's no rush, there's a bunch of food from all over the world waiting to be discovered.
Fruits and vegetables are fresh and seasonal. The BRITISH climate is humid, the sunshine time is small, in addition to the British apples and pears, almost most of the other vegetables and fruits are imported, so here you can buy fresh vegetables and fruits from all over the world, the price is of course too cheap to say.
Here you can buy a box of apples or a box of bananas or a box of grapes for a pound, especially when it is almost time to go down, the owner will sell all the fruits and vegetables in piles in order to empty the shelves, and you have to prepare a lot of change, because there is no card machine here.
Of course, the open-air market is indispensable to street food, including burgers, sandwiches, cheesecakes, pizza, Indian rolls, Mexican dishes, fruit pancakes, etc., the price is generally around 5 pounds a piece, the portion is very large, you can top a lunch.
Notch Hill is not to be missed as a bookstore, the birthplace of Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant's romantic love story in the Notting Hill movie: the Travel Bookstore.
Walking into the bookstore, warm lights, old bookshelves, faint book fragrance, and the classic photos of the movie "Notting Hill" in the corner, the warm and romantic feeling is born, and both tourists and shopkeepers in the store can't bear to disturb the quiet atmosphere here, silently turn the pages and immerse themselves in romantic love stories.
Although the bookstore in the movie no longer exists, the fairytale love story about Notting Hill has become the fantasy and expectation of countless people, as Roberts said in the movie: i'm also just a girl, standing in front of a boy, asking him to love her.