After our trip to the Royal Mews, our band of intrepid travelers (daughter Liz, SIL Peter, granddaughter Adeline et moi) decided to take the Tube back to the Knightsbridge Station in our tony Kensington neighborhood and pop in at a few of the shops that make London so famous.

We had to see Harrods, that wonderful department store with over 300 departments.  Of course, we had to hit the enormous food hall, just to see the immense displays of every edible known to humankind. Oh my!

Then we headed up to the children’s floor, where it was possible to find every designer outfit you can imagine scaled down for kiddies. The prices, however, were not scaled down, so we saved our shillings for a later trip to the more reasonable Marks & Spencer. They also had a quite respectable toy selection if you were in the market for a kiddie-sized Rolls Royce. Adeline was delighted to get her hand painted with some sparkle product while we passed through, and the Lego section was Harry Potter-intensive. She was most fascinated by the clip-on, light-up wheels that the sales associates sped around on, but we convinced her that she would have nowhere to wear them back home. (That was a close one!)

Of course, as it was late afternoon, we were feeling a bit peckish, so we decided to visit one of Harrods’ 20 restaurants. We found Harrods Café on the third floor, steps away from the luxury housewares departments.  Who doesn’t want $900 Versace sheets or a $5000 Roche Bobois armchair?

We settled for some wonderful English tea and cakes.  I had a Victoria Sponge that was completely delightful while my companions partook of such delicacies as a mango and pineapple entremet with a yuzu glaze and a fantastic lemon meringue tart. Refortified, we resumed our wandering, stopping by Harvey Nichols for a walkabout and doing loads of window shopping.

Before we knew it, it was time to eat again, and since it was on the early side, Liz thought we might be able to get a table at Ishbilia, a famous Lebanese restaurant near our hotel. Sure enough, we were the second table seated for the dinner service, and it did not disappoint.

We shared an assortment of spreads, including hummus, tabouleh, and makdous which is baby aubergines (eggplants) stuffed with walnuts, herbs, and garlic, marinated in olive oil and lemon. Yum. We ate cold mezze, we ate hot mezze, we ate main courses. We ate an embarrassing amount of food, but it was all so delicious that we couldn’t stop ourselves.

Then it was time to head back to our cozy accommodations at the Ampersand Hotel for some rest because we had another very full day of fun planned for the morrow. Before we knew it, it would be time to wakey, wakey!