Little Venice

London has many little countries. There is Little Saigon, for instance, the neighborhood in Shoreditch teeming with Vietnamese restaurants. In the far north, near Palmer’s Green, Cypriots have formed their own Little Cyprus. And there used to be Little Germany, the nickname for Whitechapel, where Germans came to work in the sugar refineries in the 18th century. Nowadays, this district is Banglatown. But the most beautiful ‘little’ is, how could it be otherwise, Little Venice.

Little Venice is a picturesque district near Paddington Station where the Grand Union Canal and the Regent’s Canal meet. The name was coined by the poet Robert Browning. After the death of his wife Elizabeth, he had returned to London from Italy to live on Warwick Street. He became friends with Anne Thackeray Ritchie, Lady Ritchie, wrote that Little Venice was ‘touched by indefinite romance, cool and deep’.

Along the water, behind the weeping willows, stand stately, cream-colored houses – many of which were designed by John Nash, the architect who designed Buckingham Palace and the Royal Pavilion of Brighton, among others.

I enjoy sitting here next to the water, by one of the boats that has been converted into a café. Once, with Jaya and Lieven, I took the boat from this spot to Regent’s Park Zoo—a beautiful cruise. One of my first memories of this place was an interview with the late historian and writer John Julius Norwich, who had bought a seven-room townhouse here in 1960 for £7,200. Later, he sold it for £13 million. One of his most famous books was… A History of Venice .

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