The Portman Estate, Did You Say

“That’s who owns the property where you live,” said my friend, Susan, in response to my question, “What is the Portman Estate?” My curiosity had been aroused by the arrival and my subsequent perusal of this magazine in my mail slot: http://www.portmanestate.co.uk/magazine/2009-autumn.pdf
I asked Susan whether she got the magazine in her mail slot. She said she hadn't – that the Estate didn’t own her house, even though she only lives about a block away from me.

I had remembered that (at least in large part) property in London is leased, not owned, but I assumed that the government let the leases. Not so. Apparently, the aristocracy owns much of the property. A little investigation revealed that the 999th Viscount Portman (number really slightly lower) owns the property I rent from my landlord. The Estate is 110 acres of prime London real estate in “W1,” the prefix for my post code which is a much more upscale area than I could afford to live did I not receive a nice housing allowance.

A number of other “Estates” also hold significant sections of London; although a large part of their property consists of amazing public parks (Regents, Hyde, etc), the Crown (yes, the monarchy) Estate is one of the largest in London.

For Sex and the City fans, check out page 42 of the above magazine. The illustrious designer Jimmy Choo owns a shop of imaginative shoes somewhere in the Portman Estate vacinity, too!

Just in case this isn’t all you ever wanted to know about the London leasehold system, start here for more info:
http://www.richest-people.co.uk/who-owns-london/
http://www.portmanestate.co.uk/
http://www.portmanestate.co.uk/directory/maps.html

Amazing Salamanca/Accidental Madrid

Spain Oct 09

Oh, me, oh, my! Well, if you didn’t already read about it on Facebook, you should have! Especially since all my Facebook data roaming posts cost me ₤122! Indeed! Much of that money/time was spent bemoaning the fact that I missed my plane in Madrid, had to stay 2+ extra days because it was a BIG HOLIDAY WEEKEND in Spain!!!! Who knew that Spain also celebrates Columbus Day:):) know it’s hard to believe that between the 5:10 p.m. Thursday missed plane and the 6:30 a.m. Sunday "caught" plane, there was not one single flight to London. I can’t swear there wasn’t. All I know for sure is that there wasn’t another flight among the 4 carriers in Terminal 1 and that if I had taken the time to visit the other terminals to check, I would have missed RyanAir’s generous offer of flying me back to London for an additional ₤100.

Live & learn! Live & learn! Next time I will arrive in the city 3 hours before flight time and I will pay closer attention to the metro stops to make sure I don’t miss the desired change by about 8 stops and I will make sure I know which of the 4 terminals my flight leaves from. Sometimes you get lucky; sometimes not so much.
Despite the bad luck turned good (I really did enjoy my experience in Madrid), I had a wonderful time visiting my Friend, Karen. Karen had visited me earlier in London in September & then went to Spain for a ~2 month sabbatical from her job as a Spanish language professor at Tennessee Tech. She stayed in Salamanca, a lovely city of about 100,000, that is absolutely gorgeous. I stayed with her in the Hotel Don Juan, about a block off the Plaza Mayor (“main plaza”). Visually, Salamanca is a sight to behold. The stone used for all the old buildings in the historic district where we stayed had a beautiful golden hue that seemed to make life just a little richer, warmer, as if everything were viewed through a lovely translucent jar of honey.

I visited the old and new cathedrals, two of the many in Salamanca, the university (from about 1200 – the oldest in Spain and 3rd or 4th oldest in Europe), and the Art Deco/Nouveau museum that Karen tried to get us thrown out of by taking photos of God’s amazing view from the museum balcony. I must admit it was a very cool museum, even with silly rules about not photographing their multitude of little known or appreciated Deco/Nouveau stuff. Especially silly rules, in light of the fact that the Reina Sofia museum in Madrid welcomes photos being taken of their original Picasso and Dali pieces.

Karen & I had wondered about the red faded writing we saw on the old sandstone buildings. A very informative tour (at least to Karen: the tour was in Spanish) revealed the mystery. Turned out to be 14-15th century graffiti: Students who passed their exams celebrated by writing on the walls in bull’s blood (from bullfights, of course).

Check out my Facebook entries/photos about my trip. I feel I only scratched the surface of beautiful Salamanca, and agree with Cervantes that once visited, Salamanca must be revisited.