Notting Hill and Bayswater

North of the royal parks, Bayswater is a hub of tourist restaurants and midprice hotels; far more enticing is its famous neighbor to the west, Notting Hill. A trendsetting square mile full of chic bars and restaurants, the style-watching London media has dubbed its well-dressed residents Notting Hillbillies. In the middle of it all is one of the world's great antiques markets, Portobello Road.

Notting Hill's transformation from poverty-stricken backwater to super-trendy enclave started in the '80s and had reached its peak by the early 2000s—helped, in no small way, by the famous film that bore its name. For the Notting Hill of the film sets (the Travel Bookshop on Blenheim Crescent is Hugh Grant's bookshop in the film Notting Hill), head straight for Westbourne Grove, replete with chic boutiques and charity shops laden with the castoffs from wealthy residents. The whole area has mushroomed around the Portobello Road,with the beautifully restored early-20th-century Electric Cinema at No. 191. The famous Saturday antiques market and shops are at the southern end; Westway Portobello Green Market,under the Westway overpass, is occupied by bric-a-brac, secondhand threads, and clothes and accessories by young, up-and-coming designers. Nearby on Acklam Road are the Westbourne Studios, an office complex with a gallery, restaurant, and bar open to the public, and the capital's best skateboarding park, Bay Sixty6.

In Bayswater, the main thoroughfare of Queensway is a rather peculiar, cosmopolitan street of ethnic confusion, late-night cafés and restaurants, a skating rink, and the Whiteleys shopping-and-movie mall. Nearby Paddington Station is the namesake for the marmalade-loving Paddington Bear.