August has been a month full of adventures! Two incredible weeks in Mallorca surrounded by family and friends, more of our cycling routes discovering new corners of London, a nice day trip to Canterbury, and even a funny party day at the Notting Hill Carnival!
Mallorca
The holidays at our beloved island have with no doubt been the most exciting event throughout the whole summer. Two incredible weeks of REAL SUMMER: heat, friends, party… and beach, a lot of beach time.
It’s also been a time for reunions: family, pets, old friends, and also newer ones. As usual, time passes very fast when you are having fun, and so our holidays came to an end without the chance of visiting everyone. Truth is, it doesn’t matter how many plans you had, and no matter how well you try to organise your time, things come as they come. Anyway, thanks to those who found a bit of their time to share with the two Londoners, next time will be even better!
Good friends are the family one chooses, and you can usually count them with a single hand. Well, so ours decided to invite us to a perfect weekend at Camp de Mar, a quiet corner in the island’s northern shore. Pure and simple relax.
Among beaches, pools and spas, there was also time por party. Don’t let the laughter stop!!
We also experienced some difficulties on the road. Catching up with mum can be dangerous some times!
And the time came to fly back. Look at those sad faces… Having better holidays than these is simply impossible.
Back to London: Monument
Back in London, and seizing the good weather, we got back on our bikes to keep riding throughout the city, looking for new secrets to discover. In one of our rides to Central London, we decided to climb The Monument, an almost 60m tall column, with an observing point at the top, and which commemorates the Great Fire of London of 1666, where 75% of the city burned to the ground. Brits and fire have an interesting hate/love relationship, since virtually any fairly important monument or building has had some problems related to fire. I guess I now get why Londoners go mental as soon as they see a smoky bin due to a few cigarette butts!
A day in Canterbury
As if the trip to Mallorca hadn’t been enough, just a few days after our return we decided to have a day trip to Canterbury by train. Famous for their “Canterbury Tales”, the most famous tales in British literature, the small town offers a great and cozy medieval atmosphere, and it’s not difficult to fade away among its many historical streets and canals.
Notting Hill Carnival
Every year, during the last weekend of August, the famous Carnival parade takes place at the London neighbourhood of Notting Hill. With its origins in the 1960s, the festival celebrates the great multiculturality of the cosmopolitan city of London. During the August Bank Holiday, the streets of Notting Hill are dyed in rainbow colours during the whole Sunday and Monday.
Meeting our friends at the nearby station of Queensway, we set off towards Notting Hill, where we took our strategic position in a broad traffic-closed crossway, where we waited for the Carnival Parade listening to samba and reggae!
Our video, below, is a full-colour abstract of what it is like to celebrate carnival at Notting Hill!
Music – Trulyors-Soldier (Tom Peters Remix) – Deep House Amsterdam.