Afternoon stroll in London

In the pale gold of the following afternoon we took a stroll in the neighborhood beyond the shopping hordes on the Brompton Road, towards Hans Place. In this the residential part of Knightsbridge, with its soft edged blocks of blood orange colored mansion flats and lovely town houses the area seemed to take on an almost village-like calm, broken only by the occasional soft purring tick of passing cabs. We discovered an elegant mews with cobble stones, a leafy square and Italianate side streets whitewashed and splashed with red carnations and geraniums. And no one seemed to be in sight until we came to Pont Street, filled with locals crisscrossing the road, milling, chatting, doing their bits of shopping, buying everything from baguettes to Beluga caviar. The array of boutique food emporia in Pont Street was truly astonishing. Bright eyed and bright scaled creatures almost flapped with freshness on the fishmongers marble counter, the aroma of fresh bread wafted from the bakery, and vegetables in the green grocers window seemed mounted and displayed like individual jewels in blue tissue paper.