Food and fruit markets are not quite the colorful and impressive for the senses as in the tropics. Except for the difference in surroundings and climate, it somehow gives another appeal to the experience when you know that the fruits have literally been picked from the rainforest or garden, just around the corner or up in the hills. It is a pleasure nonetheless to stroll around the market streets of London and inhale the scents of cilantro, satsumas, fresh fish, strawberries and parsley in a curious melange. The mangos looks tempting but I can't bother to try them. Having tasted and fallen in love with the Antiguan ones, I'll better stay away from anything this far from the equator to avoid getting disappointed. The sweet European cherries were delicious though, something you won't so easily find in the West Indies.

After four days of rain, the sun is back with us again. Getting reports from Antigua that it is inhumanly hot and humid over there as the hurricane season just started so I'm enjoying these chillier and more refreshing winds for as long as I can.

The United Kingdom celebrated Queen Elizabeth II's 60th year on the throne this past weekend. A good friend of mine invited us to a gorgeous royal themed party in a beautiful penthouse next to the river Thames where the Queen received peoples salutes from the royal barge. A maritime parade was held of 1,000 boats from around the Commonwealth, the largest flotilla seen on the river in 350 years. A pity that the weather showed its worse side, would have loved to catch some better photos of the Queen and the royal barge MS Spirit of Chartwell. Despite the distance and blurriness, you can see Queen Elizabeth II, Camilla - Duchess of Cornwall, Prince William - Duke of Cambridge; Catherine - Duchess of Cambridge and Prince Harry on my photo of the barge. Thanks to Timur for the invite and to Noha for an amazing party.

Soundtrack of the day. Images taken at my favorite brasserie in Notting Hill.

Feels very strange to be writing in this World Tour blog about my personal travels in Europe, when the sole purpose of this blog was to tell stories about Alex and my sailing journey around the world. The option would be to keep it quiet here until I get back to the boat, but we have elected these London/Berlin/Europe updates are better than nothing during this little break. I hope you all agree? I have tried to get Alex to send me some images of his boat work for a few weeks now but you all know how much he loves spending time with the computer... hopefully he'll get his mind around it sometime soon.