One year on...

One full year has passed since we first arrived in London.  It feels like it's been a lifetime but at the same time feels like it was only yesterday that we left.

Life in London is now simply just life. 

Lately, we've been busy doing and seeing some pretty amazing things like The Lion King in theatre, a photography course, seeing some contemporary ballet with music composed by the Pet Shop boys and sitting in the sun enjoying the beautiful warm spring weather that arrived early in March.

Suddenly, the trees are regrowing their leaves, the Cherry Blossoms are in full bloom and there are flowers everywhere.  Life is springing everywhere thanks to the April showers we've been having.

I thought I'd post some photos of our recent adventures around London and also some of our angel - The Angel (where we live).

We've made it through the Winter and Pimms season is edging closer.....hoorah.

E&S
xoxo

 February snow

The streets of Angel

 Regents Canal - Angel

 Battersea Park

 Swan Lake - hehe - Battersea Park

 Battersea Park

 One of the Easter Eggs spotted around town

 Neals Yard - Covent Garden

 Pretty fresh blooms

 Regents Canal - Angel

 Downtown Angel

Portugal: the land of custard tarts and sun

S and I just celebrated our second wedding anniversary in style!

The Easter long weekend presented the perfect opportunity to catch some rays in Portugal.  We decided to bypass a stay in Lisbon and headed for Cascais instead - a stunningly gorgeous beach town on the Estoril Coast (not too far from Lisbon).

Cascais is manicured to perfection, colourful, blessed by beautiful weather and entertains a very wealthy set of people.  We splurged for our anniversary and stayed in the 5 star Grande Real Villa Italia, the former palace of the last king of Italy (who knew that Italy had a King until as late as the 1940's).  Full of marble, electronic curtains, king beds and private terraces, it was a perfect retreat.

Cascais, historically, was a perfect escape for exiled royalty and the high rolling society is very much still alive.  The town is full of mansion sized villas painted in pinks and blues and yellows and greens with bright coloured flowers to match.  Cascais faces the Atlantic Ocean and outside of its hidden bays are sheer cliff faces that cop some quite strong winds.

We enjoyed four whole days of fresh seafood - gigantic fresh prawns (at Mar do Inferno) and fresh whole fish.

Apart from lazing in the sun, we also ventured into Lisbon.  We enjoyed a tram ride up to the old Alfama district which sits high on the hill overlooking the river and the rest of Lisbon's sun laden red roofs.  The Alfama district is full of narrow, steep alleys with houses basically on top of each other - our guidebook rightly told us that if we find a street that allows two cars to pass each other then we have left the district.

One of our highlights was a day trip to Sintra - an insanely magical place that seemed like it was straight out of my girlhood dreams.  There are approximately 6 palaces in and around Sintra and we opted for the beautiful Pena Palace.  This place was INSANE!  Right on the top of the mountain, the bus ride up was certainly an experience. We loved the luscious forest, lakes and gardens with gigantic bees mining the pollen from the pretty rhododendrons.

We really wanted to relax and were lucky enough to enjoy romantic strolls along the beach followed by lazing around the pool with a crisp wine.  Poor old S got insanely burnt - we forgot that after 6 months of no sun our skin might forget what to do in direct sunlight.

Portugal is a special place - eternally relaxed, soaked in sunlight that shines like a blanket of glitter on the ocean, fresh air, fantastic food and how can we forget, a very very strong sweet tooth.  We could never walk past one of those delectable custard tarts.

The forecast predicated rain but instead we had a perfect holiday with clear skies - we'll never forget it.

xoxo
E&S

 Cascais lighthouse

  Carbo de Roca - the Mouth of Hell

Anniversary gift from the hotel

Sitting in a Miradour in Lisbon 

Tram 28 in Lisbon

Pena Palace

The view from Pena Palace - imagine if this was your back deck

Cascais Beach

Eating Our Way Through London: Brill

S and I would like to introduce one of our local and most favourite brunch spots - Brill.

Brunch is a regular weekend occurrence in London so it is vital to get somewhere with great copy that you love.

Brill stands for 'brilliant' - a term used frequently by the Brits.  But the brilliant thing about Brill is that the staff are mostly Australian so you can trust that the coffee is fab.

Their specialty is freshly made bagels - I always have salmon, cream cheese and gherkins and S always has ham, tomato and mayonnaise.  Sometimes we even sneak some fresh banana bread.

The vibe is extremely chilled and low key and quite often we walk down leafy Rosebury Ave to Exmouth Market where Brill is located for a lovely Sunday morning.

I have a feeling that we will be visiting Brill for as long as we live in the Angel.

E&S
xoxo

Uptown, Downtown - Photos of New York

On the steps of the Met

Chilling in Union Sqaure Park and Market

The 'tram' to Roosevelt Island

Burgers, Bugers, Burgers

On the way to Brooklyn

The Chelsea Highline

The traffic viewing platform on the Highline

Central Park

Lady Liberty herself

The New York Library

Inside Grand Central Station

Empire State from Madison Square Park

On the red steps at Times Square

The Flatiron Building

The West Village

The Brooklyn Bridge

A view from the Empire State

NYC Baby

S and I had been saving New York.  It was one place we hadn't been that everyone raved about.  Since it is only 6 hours away from London, we decided that it was time to go.

New York City is incredible! I like to refer to it as a concrete jungle...miles and miles and miles of cement and skyscrapers, beeping horns, yellow cabs, hot dog stands, avenues and streets that stretch as far as the eye can see and steam coming out of drains.

We were lucky enough to spend 9 days in the Big Apple and our highlights were:

• seeing Mary Poppins on Broadway (a great way to spend a rainy day although the matinee is not so great when you are surrounded by 500 Year 5 students).
• the High Line - such an ingenious use of space.
• the West Village, Greenwich Village and the Meatpacking District.
• the views from the Empire State.
• burgers at Shake Shack (the best in the city).
• walking over the Brooklyn Bridge.
• oysters and lobster rolls at The Mermaid Inn on the Lower East Side.
• the New York Library - how every library in your mind looks.
• ice skating in Central Park (in fact, the whole of Central Park is pretty amazing).
• cupcakes at Magnolia Bakery.
• apple cider donuts from Union Square Markets.
• the Chelsea Market.
• last but not least, Henri Bendels (one of the best on 5th).

We also went to MOMA (which had an incredible collection of Picassos and Dali's etc), the Met, Grand Central, the Flatiron, the Statue of Liberty, the 9/11 memorial, the vault at the American Federal Reserve Bank, Times Square, Chelsea Galleries, jazz at the Village Vangaurd and shopping in SoHo.

We loved spying on the wealthy people of the Upper East Side with their doormen and drivers

We ate incredibly well which meant that what we lost in money, we gained in weight.  We went to Cafe Cluny, Minetta Tavern, Tipsy Parsons, Dos Caminos, Magnolia Bakery, City Bakery, Peels, Bubby's in Brooklyn, the Standard Bar and Grill - the list goes on and on....

Despite being in one of the biggest cities in the world, we managed to take it easy and have a really good break.  We loved the grid system.  The city is so walkable; you never fear getting lost (except for when you're in the West Village).  We didn't love the Subway all that much.  Compared to London, it is quite dirty and confusing but incredibly efficient.  We had fun trying to hail cabs instead.

It's a remarkable city with a real buzz. It's true what they say - 'the City never sleeps'. 

Hands down one of our favourite areas was the West Village and we spent quite a lot of time strolling around the streets, peering through the windows of the Brown Stones, popping in to boutiques and cafes (for a sneaky bloody mary!).  It's much more civilised and relaxed down in that part of town.

I could go on and on and on about New York but I wont.  I feel like we managed to see a lot but at the same time only scratched the surface.  One last thing, we found the people incredibly friendly and helpful (although...New Yorkers talk loud and I mean loud...)!

Some photos up next - a small selection anyway because there was too many!

xoxo
E&S

Eating our Way Through London: NOPI

NOPI is the restaurant that inspired us to write about our food explorations through London.  We were lucky enough to arrive one Friday night without a booking and get a seat - we definitely got the impression that this was not the norm.  We sat at the bar, which we loved because of it's informality.

NOPI is a brasserie with a twist.  Each of the dishes are made to share, allowing you to sample a little bit of everything.  It uses fresh produce that is in season and they let the food speak for itself in a simple, robust way.  We love that the menu changes week to week and day to day.

We had truffled carrots, roasted aubergine with goats cheese and pomegranate, seared lamb with a pesto sauce and a very succulent pork belly .  We sipped on a volcanic red wine (recommended by the bar staff) with a very different taste.  S had caramel and roasted peanut ice cream with chocolate sauce (absolute delish) and I had chocolate hazelnut slice with mahlab and cherries (equally as yum).

The decor is stylish and grown up with plenty of marble, brass and mirrors. Plus I loved the fresh flowers and the attentive and informative staff.

We were extremely impressed and can't wait to go back.  It was a really lovely place for a romantic date.

xoxo
E&S