Needing to stay in Town for a meeting at the Royal Aeronautical Society, you do well to find anything reasonable in Mayfair, but as I’d never been…the Holiday Inn saved me once again. In the U.S., the HI is where you’re most likely to find your dogs welcome. Abroad in the world, they’ve proved a midrange but clean accommodation without astronomic prices, from Nanjing to Dubai.
And, in this case, a perfect perch for my consideration upon the heart of Westminster. Across the street sits the Ritz, where I’ll have a steak tartare as a special treat, and I’d passed by Ladurée for macarons (sensing a theme…Paris in London?) to enjoy while I survey the scene outside my window.
I’d finally seen Berkeley Square, and understood the real way to pronounce it had been mine all along, thanks to the Manhattan Transfer. I pour a bottle of hard cider (not French) from my shopping trip to M&S into a glass, giving us both a greater sense of class. The leveling between classes transpires outside on these streets as well…still ever the striving.
The London of Mayfair shows the city’s most classic sense, that quietly proud look, the hidden parks, not just the expanses of Green Park…and the nightingale singing, I swear, as a man in morning dress strolls past, on the street where I (temporarily) live.
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- A touch of cider to go with cheese and crackers on my window perch
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- View from the perch as the sunset lights up Mayfair
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- A quiet park tucked into the space between townhouses