Mayfair

Yesterday I was strolling around Mayfair. I needed fresh air in a very lazy Sunday. It was due to a very lively Saturday when I attended two Birthday parties until very late ... too much for my age!.

Mayfair emerged in the eighteenth century as one of London’s first real residential suburbs. Soon it started to attract aristocratic London and set the westward trend for middle-class migration and you can see now the touch of luxury and elegancy in every corner. The borders remain among the prime shopping streets (Piccadilly, Regent Street, Bond Street). Too many things to see during one afternoon so I decided just to address the less popular streets, and I walked down from house along Park Lane until Picadilly street, but once I headed this street, after two intersections I turn on the left to get to “Shepherd Market”. A little warren of alleyways and passages now occupied by swanky shops and restaurants, plus a couple of Victorian pubs that I presume are extremely popular during the summer. Even yesterday there were plenty of people at their surrounds having beer and it reminded me somehow the atmosphere of people having the aperitif in the Barrio de Salamanca. It was too formal to be close to “La Latina”. Anyway this area is very charming and I recommend going there and I’m sure I’ll come back but next time with company to have a good Belgian beer. I’ve read that Johnny Depp and Vanessa Paradis spent a cool 17,000 pounds on a meal. Unfortunately my budget is not so high for a dinner but still I think I’ll be able to manage a good company.

Afterwards I headed Old Bond Street and after passing by the most expensive and well presented shops I’ve ever been so far in London, being home to all the leading multinational designer clothes outlets like Prada, Versace, Donna Karan, Chanel and so on I got the Royal Arcade an example of the traditional and elegant English shopping mall. Close by, are the auction house “Sotheby’s”, 34-35 Old New Bond St, where I stopped to admire the oldest outdoor sculpture in London (it dates from 1600 BC) and nearby a popular double statue of Winston Churchill and President Roosevelt. American bonds continue in Grosvenor Square where I went afterwards and where you can find the ugly US Embassy and a big statue stands in memorial again of Roosevelt. From there, I reached Oxford Street that led me again to my apartment at Kendal Street. I found out why that name, Oxford Street was the old Roman road that linked Londonium with Oxford.

In the end it was a nice walk, a little step to keep knowing this great City of London.