The trick to Notting Hill is to walk it in the wrong direction. Everyone starts at Notting Hill Gate and works north up Portobello. That's the guided tour. The real walk goes the other way: north to south, top to bottom, quiet to loud.
Start at Ladbroke Grove. Turn north to Golborne Road and have a pastel de nata at Lisboa, which has been there forever and hasn't changed. Look west and up — that's Trellick Tower, Goldfinger's beautiful monster. Walk around its base; it's more benign close up than from the train window.
From there south along the quiet parallels — St Ervans Road, Oxford Gardens — and you'll hit Blenheim Crescent, where two or three bookshops are still honourable holdouts. Then the mews: Denbigh Close, or any of the small turnings off Westbourne Park Road. Twenty metres of cobbles, a door painted sea-green, out again.
End in Hillgate Village, which is two streets of candy-coloured terraces no one can afford. Notting Hill Gate is a minute away.
