London Notting Hill Tourist Map

Notting Hill is a hilly grid of pastel terraces and private garden squares in west London, held together by one long street: Portobello Road. The market runs down it from the antiques end near Notting Hill Gate to food, clothes and vintage under the Westway. Most visitors come for the market, the bookshops and the locations from the 1999 film, and all of them fit into a half-day walk.

Portobello Road Market trades six days a week, but Saturday is the big day, when the antiques dealers are out in force. Halfway down is the Electric Cinema, opened in 1910 and one of Britain's oldest working cinemas, now with armchairs and sofas. At the top of the hill, the Sun in Splendour is a handy pub to start or finish in.

Off Portobello on Blenheim Crescent are two bookshops worth the detour: The Notting Hill Bookshop, the travel-bookshop-turned-local-favourite linked to the film, and Books for Cooks, which tests recipes from its stock in a small kitchen at the back. The Blue Door from Notting Hill on Westbourne Park Road and the pastel houses of St Luke's Mews are private homes: look and photograph from the street.

When to go: Saturday morning for the full market, arriving before 11am to beat the crowds; Friday is quieter, and the street market is closed on Sundays. Notting Hill Carnival fills the streets over the August bank holiday weekend; skip the market that weekend. Stations: Notting Hill Gate (Central, Circle and District lines) for the top of Portobello Road; Ladbroke Grove and Westbourne Park (Circle and Hammersmith & City lines) for the north end.