All of Europe was shopping with us on Portobello Road this saturday morning

If you were wondering why your local market or shopping centre was a bit quiet this morning then I have the answer....everyone was shopping at the Portobello Market in London! 

Peter, Caity, Hugh and I set off on foot this morning for the market. We passed over the beautiful Little Venice canal and under the not-so-beautiful motorway on our way unique antiques, cool vintage clothes, tacky souvenirs and abundant fruit and veg. 

The market runs the length of Portobello road. We were shoulder to shoulder with Italian and French tourists with the occasional smattering of other nationalities. Since we had approached from the north and the nearest tube station is south of the road, we were swimming against this human tide. We shouldered our way to the southern end of the market and then 'surfed the human wave' north. 

Peter and Hugh went off to check out old prints and watches while Caity and I perused the fashion...after procuring a much needed coffee! Along the way we were entertained by many buskers....some good and some not so good. One guy, wearing one flipper and lip-syncing some sort of heavy metal was so 'not good.' Two Bobbies tried to move him on.

We hooked up an hour later and headed to the British Museum in search of personal space and Egyptian mummies. This involved a lightning fast journey on the underground from Notting Hill to Tottenham Court Road. Boy do those things go fast! Once there we tracked down toilets, food and mummies, in that order. 

The British 'discovered' and brought home so many treasures in the last couple of centuries. I believe they have repatriated some of their  'discoveries' but that hasn't affected the breadth of the displays at the Museum. There are some 5 halls with mummies dating from 3000 BC to about 200 AD. The kids were really keen to see an unwrapped mummy. Judging from the looks on their faces, I reckon they were a bit let down by the quality of the embalming. 

After the mummies and a quick detour to another exhibit on life and death, we headed home. After walking much further down Oxford Street than we had energy for, we boarded the number 6 bus to our tranquil garden apartment.