We’ve been in our flat for just over three weeks now. All is going well, except for my war with our landlords (it’s not that interesting of a war, but if anyone cares for a play-by-play, text me, I am happy to oblige).

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Notting Hill is quite “posh.” It is probably a lot like living in Pac Heights, but a little hipper. There are antique markets about every other day, where you can buy all kinds of treasures. The neighborhood is full of boutiques, pubs, and a fabulous market/restaurant/home goods store, Daylesford, that is supplied entirely with food from its own farm.

There are a lot of families in the neighborhood, so lots of school kids dressed in their little uniforms with straw hats, which is adorable. Here’s an idea of what the neighborhood looks like.

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And we are really close to Hyde Park (below), and Holland Park. Both beautiful.

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Another fun neighborhood feature is the luxury cars parked on the street. I get a lot of amusement out of the person who purchases an Aston Martin — like the one below which lives outside our flat — but not a parking space.

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Favorite thing about the neighborhood so far – the kitties! There are so many! I love seeing them roaming around. I have one special cat friend who lives across the street. He likes to sit in a pot, and when he has time, chase squirrels.

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We are settling in nicely. Dan got hooked-up with a great incubator, so is going to the office everyday. I’m rowing with a really fun group of women, working on finishing up my horticulture classes, and doing a lot of cooking for us. Plus managing my herb garden and geranium collection. Important job.

Alice has discovered she prefers napping in the comfy pink chair in our bedroom above all other spots, and that she would like to be carried up the five flights of stairs to our flat.

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London in the summer is full of fun. On Tuesday night, we went to A Midsummer Night’s Dream in our garden. There were probably 150 people in attendance for the outdoor performance. It was such a nice event to attend. We got lucky to get in, as tickets were sold out, and we thought we would have to watch through our bedroom window.

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We’ve got a busy couple weeks coming up that I’m really excited for. Wimbledon gets going on Monday — finally time for strawberries and cream, and Pimms! Next weekend is Royal Henley, which I need a fancy hat for. I’m headed to Paris for a few days of adventure with Dr. CJ. Dan’s mom is coming to visit. And then . . . I’m racing in a 4+ at Masters Henley! I’m so excited about racing on such a renowned course. Can hardly contain myself.

Florence is really interesting for all its history and art, but as Vicki Hallett put it in her great travel piece on Modena, Florence “is basically an American college campus covered in Renaissance art.” It’s not only filled with college students, but tourists, and it’s hard to escape the crowds. So I wanted to write a little bit about the neighborhood we stayed in, Oltrarno, because we really enjoyed it. Just far enough out of the crazy, but not too far to make it inconvenient.

The heart of Oltrarno is Piazza Santo Spirito. A small piazza with a fountain in the center. The Piazza has been around since the 1200s. The church, Santo Spirito, was designed by Filippo Brunelleschi (the guy who built the Duomo) and completed in the late 1400s.

The Piazza has a daily market with rotating vendors and is surrounded by restaurants, coffee shops, and bars. It was approximately a 2 minutes walk from our apartment, so we got to know it.

Each morning we took Alice to the Piazza for an espresso. We slowly woke-up with the neighborhood this way. As we drank our cappuccinos, vendors would start to trickle into the Piazza to set up their tables and stalls for the day. We came to recognize a few locals at the coffee shop — an older woman who loves Alice and feeding the birds, another woman, who also loves to feed the birds and has a white mini-poodle named Aukie. The birds are basically pets in this Piazza. We also saw the municipal street cleaners every morning at the coffee shop. It was really nice to see, and attempt to speak to, these familiar faces everyday. Alice gets all the credit for anyone even trying to speak to us.

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Scenes from the market.

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We also loved our apartment. With the exception of the neighbors upstairs who occasionally seemed to be dragging large pieces of furniture across their floor, and two very grumpy women with a grumpy dog, it was perfect. When you walk into the apartment there is a huge living space with tiled floors laid in a herringbone pattern. There are three large shuttered windows in the main room. The ceiling is probably 15 ft high, and the natural light is beautiful. As you move into the apartment the dinning room is in front of you, and the kitchen on the left. The two spacious bedrooms come next. My mom’s bedroom had a wall painted the color of an apricot, which made the room look sunny at all times. Her room has doors that lead out to a balcony overlooking a courtyard. Our room has its own bathroom complete with a shower head in the middle of the ceiling! Very convenient. If the grumpy ladies and their dog do not bother you and you need a place to stay in Florence, we’d be happy to pass on the info.

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Oltrarno has great food – gelato, pizza, pasta, bistecca fiorentina, etc. – is not entirely overrun by tourists, and is close enough to all the main attractions. Would highly recommend if you’re headed to Florence and don’t want to feel like you are in the middle of a stampede or running of the bulls at all times.

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Back to blogging that is. Not the U.S. We’ve had a busy last couple of weeks leaving Italia, getting Alice past UK boarder security, recovering from colds, waking up at 2:00 a.m. to watch the Warriors, and settling into our London flat, so the blog has been on the back burner.

I’ve got at least one post about Italia that I will put up later this week, and I’m sure I’ll have lots to write about London, but for now, here is the story about our journey to the UK and where we spent our first couple of days here.

Arrivederchi, Firenze, hand-made pasta, and gelato . . .

We left Florence on the last day of May. Because I am paranoid about missing flights, we left our apartment at 4:15 a.m. for a 6:30 a.m. flight. Needless to say, we arrived at the airport a solid two hours before takeoff, which made one of the three of us (me) happy. Flew to Charles de Gaulle where we were picked up by a car service, driven to Calais, and then through the Channel Tunnel to England. Why not fly directly to Heathrow, you might ask? Well, where would the fun be in that?! But actually, despite the fun, it is because the UK does not allow you to fly into it with a pet in the cabin. Pets can be in the hold, but not the cabin. No one has explained why this makes sense. So we got the opportunity to drive through the beautiful French country-side for three hours.

All went smoothly until we arrived at “Pet Reception” in Calais, where they told us Alice needed to go to a French vet and get a new passport because, although she was cleared to cross the boarder, a date on her Spanish passport was not written properly . . . . So, we drove to a French vet where the receptionist filled out a new passport — the vet played no role — in exchange for 50 euros cash. This apparently happens with so much frequency that there are a ridiculous number of vets within 10 minutes of the Tunnel to accommodate filling out new paperwork that no one will every look at again. Bright side – Alice has TWO passports now. Thinking of getting her a UK passport in the likely event of a no-deal Brexit.

After that, and a grilling from UK boarder security — she was not convinced we are going to leave in the appropriate amount of time, but we promised we would not use any free health care and she let us by — we were on our way.

And the UK portion of our European Tour began!

We spent four days in Folkestone, a little beach town in southern England, while we waited for our apartment in London to be ready. I loved it. Too sleepy for Dan.

Folkestone feels like the place they would have gone in Downton Abbey to get away from the stress of running a country estate. Our hotel sat back from a cliff overlooking the English Channel. A lovely promenade called The Leas runs all along the cliff. As you walk towards town on The Leas, the sea is on the right, Victorian homes, hotels, and large green lawns are on the left. The cliffside is a maze of paths and stairs that lead down to the ocean. At the base of the cliff are colorfully painted beach huts, and a miles-long red-pebble beach.

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According to some signs I read, King Edward VII (Queen Victoria’s son) spent a lot of time in Folkestone at the fancy hotel, The Grand, with his mistress, Alice Keppel. We stayed next to The Grand in The Burlington, which was built in the 1890s, and is very charming.

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All along The Leas, red poppies — the symbol of remembrance for those who fought in WWI — made of yarn are tied to the railings.

The homes are beautiful, the gardens are beautiful, and it reminds me a lot of the San Juan Islands. Probably why I like it so much. Some views from around town and the small harbor.

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This spring has been unseasonably cold in Europe, and the trend is continuing into early summer. We’ve got our fingers crossed things warm up soon. It was in the low 60’s for most of our time in Folkestone. As a result we didn’t get an idea of how this places looks in the summer, but I imagine by the number of beach huts, that it is full of action and fun.