Venere Travel Blog - It's our business where you sleep!

One of the many wonderful things about London, is the high street that runs through most every neighborhood. On a recent visit to the city, I had some time to kill before catching my bus to Stansted Airport. The bus was scheduled to pick me up at Gloucester Place in Marylebone. A friend had mentioned that Marylebone High Street was one of the city’s most charming. So I strolled over.

She was right. Lovely cafes, restaurants, and fashionable shops line the street. I did a bit of window shopping before stopping in to Daunt Books, at number 83. What better place to spend time before a flight than a book shop? Better yet, a book store that specializes in travel.

The front room of the original, Edwardian period store, features beautifully laid out selections of new releases of all types. Further back, one will find art, design, cooking, and gardening titles. But the pièce de résistance lies in the back “gallery”, where an extensive selection of travel volumes are housed on two floors.

Organized by country, travel guides are mixed with novels and non-fiction books, new and used. Perusing the shelves, my eye wandered through the section devoted to England, where histories, and biographies of British royalty beckoned.

Before making my way to the section on Germany, where I currently live, I stopped to browse the books on America. A tinge of homesickness surfaced while flipping through a New England art book. I quickly continued down the aisle and snatched up two interesting books about Germany, one used, hardcover called Along the Wall and Watchtowers, A Journey Down Germany’s Divide, by a young German journalist called Oliver August; and an anonymous diary titled A Woman In Berlin. Needless to say, I was well satiated on my flight back home.

Photo of Daunt Books bookstore originally posted by stealthtractor