London, Part 2

So now, it is 2009 and we've had another full day with lots of walking.  We went back to St. Paul's cathedral during its open time and got in to see everything.  The first St. Paul's was on this spot for 600 years but was destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666.  The new cathedral was designed and built by Christopher Wren who included in the design a great dome which was very unusual at that time (editorial note:  but it doesn't have anything on Brunelleschi's dome!) :)  It's a beautiful cathedral - the altar reminded me of the altar in St. Peter's in Rome.  There is an American Memorial Chapel which honors the 28,000 Americans who died while based in England.  We climbed the 259 steps to the first level of the dome known as the Whispering Gallery because if you face the wall and whisper to someone all the way across on the other side, they can hear you!!!  Then we climbed another 119 steps on a narrow winding staircase to the outside terrace and found a wonderful view of the city.  Chris was disappointed that the remaining 152 steps to the very top were closed, but I wasn't!  (And I just Googled and found a nice view of the Lady Chapel ceiling so you can get an idea of how beautiful it is. )

View from St. Paul's.  You can see the London Eye way in the distance.  Just think how wonderful this would be on a beautiful day!

We had lunch at a cafe right near the cathedral and it was one of our two best lunches of the whole trip.  I had a toasted brie cheese with roasted veggies on an incredible baguette.  Then split a brownie that had an very thin crackly crust on top...oh my goodness!

We then walked across the Thames on the Millenium Bridge which is for pedestrian traffic only and that was neat to be walking across the Thames.  You get off the bridge right in front of the Tate Modern so we went in to see what was there.  Modern art is often times not my favorite although I can usually find pieces that appeal to me.  But this museum just really left me cold.  I didn't like the building in the first place.  It was an electrical power plant to begin with and was just basically quite unattractive.  And the stuff in it was really over the top.  Neither one of us enjoyed it, so at least I didn't have to feel like it was just me being an old "fuddy-dud".

We left there and walked to the Southwark Cathedral, passing that reconstruction of the Globe Theater on the way.  (My notes here say that this is an exact replication built "near" the original site in 1993.)  We also passed that Anchor Pub and the Golden Hind; the site of Clink Prison which was in use from 1127 to 1780 and according to the guidebook was where the various bishops of Winchester stowed anyone who got in their way.  The whole area still has a fairly dismal and foreboding aspect but it's now used for trendy offices and such.  We passed the Borough Market which was closed and I had really wanted to get a look at that.  It dates back to at least 1014!

We reached Southwark Cathedral which is the oldest Gothic church in the City of London.  Its history begins in the 7th century(!) and it has, of course, been rebuilt - once in the 850's and again in the 1150's.  Parts of the current structure date back to 1250.  And I don't know why I don't have any pictures of that.  I certainly enjoyed seeing it but maybe it was too dark or something...

We took the tube to St. Pancras station.  Chris wanted to see that because it's being restored to its former glory.  The embarkation area, which is huge, is pretty much finished and wonderful, but the rest of the building is covered in scaffolding.  It will truly be something to see when it's finished.

This time for dinner, we chose Bella Italia, right next to the Chinese restaurant and it was delicious!  (it was Italian - what would one expect?)

Friday, January 2 was another cold and cloudy day.  First off, we visited the Wallace Collection and the Soane Museum, two wonderful and totally different collections amassed by two very rich and also, apparently, totally different men.

The Wallace Collection was just one beautiful, delightful thing after another.  Room after room.  In one room they had cases filled with exquisitely carved "bas-relief wax very small plaques.  There was beautiful furniture, paintings, rooms full of armor and all housed in a gorgeous home.

John Soane's Museum on the other hand was wonderful mainly because it was SO bizarre!  The collection is housed in two townhouses and the building itself is fantastic - tiny nooks and crannies everywhere, narrow passageways you have to sidle through, rooms with half walls where you look down into other rooms below.  Half of what Mr. Soane collected looks like junk, half of it is pretty impressive and stuck down in the cellar (visible from the floor above) is the sarcophagus of Seti I!!  How he got it, transported it, and got it into the cellar one can't imagine, but there it sits.  Seems like the British Museum would be foaming at the mouth to get it.  All in all, a truly interesting visit - one could poke around for quite a while in this museum.

Our next stop was the British Library and we took the honest-to-goodness red double decker bus to get there.  I think one reason we chose buses was cause I was about done in going up and down flights and flights of stairs for the tube stations!

The library is huge and we could certainly have used more time there, but we did get to go through the room where their most treasured documents, books, music, and such are kept and that was thrilling.  Saw musical scores of Mozart and hand-written lyrics of the Beatles.  A Gutenburg bible and the oldest known printed book which was a Chinese book printed in the 600's.  Many, many beautiful examples of illuminated texts and, of course, one of the four known copies of the Magna Carta from 1215.  Unfortunately, they closed at 5:00 so we were unable to visit any of the other exhibits.

For dinner, we tried to find a street our friendly pub guy had told us about that supposedly had like 40 Indian/curry places to eat.  We thought it was Brick Street but when we got there it wasn't and someone there told us it was Brick Lane which was clear across the city.  So tired and hungry, we headed back to Bayswater, found an Indian restaurant right there on the same street as the Italian and Chinese and it was very good!

That brings us to Saturday, our last full day in London.  We had decided Friday that we would split up for Saturday cause Chris thought he might go to Bath and I didn't want to do that in the cold.  So I planned what I wanted to do and then mapped it out on the tube map to see if I could figure out how to get around.  Chris checked it all out and I had it right!  That was encouraging. :)  But Chris decided he wouldn't go to Bath either and would, instead, go to Westminster Abbey with me and, once there, we'd split up and go our separate ways, meeting back at the British Museum (where I was headed after the abbey at 5:00).

I had left Westminster Abbey until the last day cause I just didn't seem to be real excited about seeing it.  Was much more interestested in seeing the British Museum.  But I am so glad I went there.  I said Greenwich was one of my favorites - the Abbey was far and away my most thrilling experience of the whole trip.  It is so old and so incredibly filled with history that it had a tremendous impact on me.  And the fact that it's still an active church intensified that feeling.  I loved Rome and seeing all the ancient ruins, but they were ruins.  At the abbey, you see the ancient oaken coronation chair first used in 1308 and used for every coronation since (the very first coronation in the Abbey took place in 1066!) and then you read that the Queen Mother's funeral was conducted here in 2002.  Absolutely incredible.  And, beyond that, it's a breathtakingly beautiful building.  There's a Lady Chapel with a coffered ceiling that is spectacular - no frescoes, no gold or elaborate carvings, just a beautifully intricate series of buttresses and arches in plain white stone that ends up looking almost lace-like.  And the people who are buried there!!  Everyone who was anyone from kings and queens to musicians, poets, authors...absolutely a visit not to be missed.

Stunning, isn't it?

I finally pulled myself away and started on my solo trip to the British Museum.  The route from the Abbey to the tube station that I had mapped out was blocked because of some huge protest march that was on its way.  The protest was against the bombing of the Gaza strip by the Israelis and I wish I could have found out how many people were involved - it had to be thousands.  So I had some trouble getting to the tube station, but finally managed it and was quite pleased that I didn't freak out or anything - that boded well for traveling by myself in the future.  I got on the right train, got off at the right stop, found about 5 streets to choose from when I got up from the station, but asked someone which one to use and got myself to the museum.

The museum is so large that several days could easily be spent there.  But I did have a list of specific things I wanted to see while I was there (thanks to Pauline Frommer's guidebook "London for Less" - a great book) and I managed to get to all of them, even though as I sought them out, I kept getting waylaid by all the wonderful rooms full of various artifacts. 

I took a bunch of pictures but very few of them turned out to be worth looking at which was a disappointment.  

I loved this exhibit (this is just a tiny part of it) - many, many miniature carvings of ivory - all exquisite. 

These were two sort of storage areas which tickled me because of course everything was just kind of dumped around but was all pretty much priceless.

And this staircase was so beautiful.  I wish I had a better picture of it.

When Chris and I met up, we decided we'd go to the Anchor Inn for dinner since it's so historic and it was neat inside because it was all broken up with various levels, little rooms, bigger rooms and such.  It did seem old.  I decided to finally have fish and chips (as did Chris) and mine was pretty awful - the crust was really tough - I had to actually cut it with a knife.  Chris's was fine for some reason - nice and tender.  Oh, and it was served with mushy peas (which I've seen reference to in various British novels I've read) which turn out to be canned peas slightly smashed.  How exciting is that?!

But I guess two pretty disappointing dinners and one very bad lunch (at the museum) isn't too bad. 

And that pretty much wraps up the trip.  Sunday we got ourselves packed up and to the airport on time.  As I said at the beginning, we were on a double-decker plane with not one empty seat which really made me wonder how it ever gets up in the air.  But it did and managed to get all the way back to New York.

August 3, 2010 - I have to say I don't know that I'd ever make another trip to London.  It is just so vastly huge and so full of people that it really overwhelmed me.  To be there by myself I just can't quite imagine.  Florence is so contained and the historic center of the city is completely walkable from one end to the other with hardly any trouble - maybe a wrong turn now and then, but just so do-able.  But I also have to say that I think one reason Westminster Abbey stunned me SO much was because it's history (and actually pretty much England's history) is so continuous.  With Italy (and Florence) I don't even begin to understand their history.  Sometimes all the regions seemed to be separate countries, sometimes Florence rules, other times other of the Italian cities ruled, shoot - for a while Napoleon ruled which I sure hadn't realized.  But with England, they've had various royal families (I know the Tudors and the Windsors and there were probably more I'm not knowing), but they were all pretty much ruling the same area and the history just seems to be this fairly continuous ribbon unfolding.  So that's appealing, at least to me.  And I wouldn't mind at all another visit to Great Britain - some of the other cities - Oxford, Cambridge; some of the different areas - the Cotswolds, the moors; and I think I'd like to see some of Scotland and Wales too...but for now, I'll say good night!

New Post - Old Trip...

Well, I mentioned I had come across a bunch of my London trip photos and was thinking about posting what I could about that trip while I wait for my next trip.  And as a rather odd way to start, I'm going to just copy what I wrote on my first day back in the States - it certainly seems to be pointing towards the future.

Monday, January 5, 2009 (Chris and I made this trip together the week between Christmas and New Years)

I'm sitting in Chris's apartment (he was working in Manhattan) with its wonderful view of the Empire State building.  We arrived back in the States from London yesterday after a flight on a 2-level jumbo jet!  Settled in a little and called Virginia to wish her safe travel to Spain (they leave this afternoon) and called January to make arrangements for going back to D.C. tomorrow.

Then a fantastic sushi dinner, back here and finished up some laundry and managed to stay up til about 10 p.m. (about 3:00 a.m. London time).

I slept like a log, started some laundry of my own, had a lovely, long, hot shower, a chocolate croissant and a cup of tea and am now going to try on the next few pages to go back and record the highlights and minutiae of my first trip out of the country in 40 years!  I bought this journal for that purpose and with the hope that I will be using it for future trips.  (end of journal entry)

Well, thank goodness I got smart and bought my little netbook before I went to Italy cause I would never have done such a good job of recording my experiences if I had written it all out by hand as I tried to with this trip.

So, first of all, here's what the view was like from the apartment (one of them) Chris had while he was working in Manhattan:

 Isn't that fantastic?!!  And his last apartment up there looked out on Rockefeller Plaza!

Anyway, back to London.  By the way, I have mentioned before that I'm not the world's greatest photographer, but these pictures are going to make you think I have improved a LOT.  However, most of it is that I bought myself a nice little camera.  On this trip, I used my cell phone's camera, my old clunky digital camera until the batteries went dead and I bought a little disposable Kodak which was really a lost cause.  I took quite a few pictures actually, but they were mostly either black or very blurry or whatever else.

So, we flew out of New York on Sunday, 12/28 and arrived at Heathrow airport around 10:25 a.m. their time.  Thank heavens I was with Chris - I think that airport and getting out of it to the hotel might have done me in.  Paris airport was horrible last year, but I didn't have to leave it - just take a bus to where I needed to be next.  But Chris got us to our hotel which was in Bayswater and since we couldn't check in until 3:00 p.m., we dropped off our luggage and then went to a neighborhood pub (the Prince Edward) for a "traditional" British lunch.  And I have to say in retrospect, that turned out to be one of our better eating experiences.  I had bangers and mash, a name I've always loved, and it was quite tasty.  And we were I think about the only people there and the young bartender took it upon himself to keep us entertained - he was a hoot, regaling us with tales of his very numerous (maybe unbelievably numerous?) and sometimes quite amazing (maybe unbelievably amazing?) exploits during his travels.  Whether some of it was embellished or not, it was a fun conversation.

We went back and checked in and then because Chris thinks a good way to beat jet lag is to not go to bed until a relatively reasonable "current country" bed time, we went out and got tickets for a London bus tour where you can get off and on whenever you want.  It was a double decker bus and very cold, but we braved it so we could see the sights better.  Only problem was, being on the bus, by the time you tried to figure out where whatever it was that was being pointed out was, you were past it so I missed a fair amount.  But it was still pretty neat because it was London!  We did get off at St. Paul's Cathedral (a favorite of Chris's) but it was about 5:00 p.m. and they were closed for the day.  Got to go in the gift shop though, then had a tea and coffee break and then took the bus back to the tube and then the tube to our hotel.  Got unpacked in our fairly dismal room and went back out to get some dinner and decided on a Chinese one that was okay but that's about all.  I bought a scarf cause I was freezing to death and we went to Starbucks!  (Good ol' Starbucks - we ended up going at least once every day!)

The buses...

Harrod's department store after dark.

That bus tour ticket was good for 48 hours and included a river cruise on the Thames and so on Tuesday we did that and I loved it - probably one of my favorite things on the trip.  It was, of course, much slower than seeing the sights on the bus so we could actually see (and sometimes get pictures of) what the guide was talking about.  He (the guide) was quite entertaining also - very dry, British humor.  But oh, my goodness it was cold!  We boarded at the bridge near Parliament which is a truly beautiful building - one of my favorite pictures is of Parliament.  And of course, there's Big Ben right there and we even got to hear it chime.

Parliament from the bridge...

Parliament and Big Ben - the two very light towers in the background are Westminster Abbey...this is the only picture I was actually happy with.

Big Ben (duh...) I think this was at the end of our trip, but that's okay.

And, I wanted an "up close and personal" picture of Big Ben and I did - this is one humongous tower!

The boat was taking us to the Royal Naval Academy and Observatory in Greenwich and some of the things we saw along the way included Cleopatra's Needle,  the Oxo Tower whose claim to fame is that they got around the law against having advertising on buildings by making three windows on each side of the tower in the shape of an X, an O, and another X.  Pretty clever, no?  We also passed the Tate Museum of Modern Art, the Globe Theater (not the original of course but in the same place and a reconstruction), the ship "Golden Hind", a 500-year old pub called The Anchor, the Tower of London which impressed me much more than I expected it to - even on a sunny day, it exuded an aura of its very dark history.  I would not have wanted to be rowed up to one of its bleak entrances late at night after having been "tried" for treason!  We also went under Tower Bridge - beautiful.

A fairly ghastly picture but I have to prove I was there!

I forgot to say we passed the London Eye - a "ferris wheel" with cable car-sized gondolas!

The very white timbered building is the Globe Theater reconstruction.  And the Golden Hind is in there somewhere too...

Tower Bridge...

The Tower of London - wish I could have just told everyone to get out of the way!

We finally arrived at Greenwich.  I really loved this part of our trip but am not real sure why.  We visited the Painted Hall and the Royal Chapel, both part of the Old Royal Naval College, c. 1696.  The Hall was impressive and had an interesting diorama (miniature!) of the funeral of Lord Nelson.  But it was the Chapel that I loved.  It was so very beautiful, but not in the awe-inspiring way of large cathedrals.  It had a very warm and inviting feel and with the sun coming through the windows and the beautiful gold, white and light blue colors, it was truly lovely.  It's still in use - in fact, they were closing to visitors a little early to prepare for a wedding.  Unfortunately, I don't have a single picture - I bought the last postcard they had though!

Then it was a hike up the hill to the Observatory.  The view was incredible and like every other tourist, we took pictures of each other standing with one foot in the eastern hemisphere and one foot in the western hemisphere and then set our watches to exact Greenwich mean time.

At the Royal Naval Academy looking up to the Greenwich Observatory.

 And looking down to the Academy from the Observatory.

 Chris straddling the hemispheres.

We took the tube back to the City and went to Harrod's.  Went inside cause I was anxious to see the food courts I had heard so much about but it was insane!  I don't know how anyone can stand shopping there if it's always like that - wall to wall people, incredibly expensive and almost impossible to get near anything (especially in the food court).  So, for me, at least it was a disappointment.

Wednesday we visited Apsley House which is the home of the Duke of Welliington but is also a museum housing all the military honors and awards, gifts, etc., received by Arthur Wellesley, the first Duke of Wellington.  He was made a duke after defeating Napoleon and was also Prime Minister of Britain at one time.  I found it kind of depressing actually.  I got the impression that his defeat of Napoleon ruled the remainder of his life.  He even had a larger than life-sized statue of Napoleon in one of his stairwells which was kind of bizarre.  It was a statue that Napoleon had hated.  And the Duke had a wife and children but there was absolutely nothing pertaining to them in the entire museum.  Across the street from the Apsley House is a huge parkland with the Wellington Arch and the statue of the Duke on his horse.  This was as close as I got to Buckingham Palace (which was my own choice - I didn't have a great desire to see it actually, although our bus went by it at some point).

Apsley House...

and the Duke astride his steed.

We had lunch in Greenwich and then our next stop was the Victoria and Albert Museum where I was eager to see some of the needlework I've heard people on my petitpointers group talking about.  They sometimes display the Layton jacket along with a portrait of the jacket on its original owner but it was not being displayed while we were there.  So that was disappointing, but it's a fantastic museum - lots of wonderful exhibits including incredible examples of needle arts.  I'm posting one picture that is so tiny you can hardly see what it is, but it is a picture of three caskets covered with exquisite embroidery.  Caskets were a big subject in my petitpointers group a while back so I was happy to see some "in the flesh".

Ah, to have had my little Canon PowerShot...

This was New Year's Eve, so when we got back to Bayswater we took a walk around the area to see what we could see.  It turned out to be quite an attractive area once you get away from the tube station area.  Old, but well-preserved rowhouses (Georgian maybe?)  All painted a creamy white with mostly shiny black front doors.  We had our dinner at the Prince Edward pub and we certainly weren't the only people there this time!  The joint was jumpin - had a disc jockey and a disco mirror ball and everyone was having a good time.  Felt sorry for Chris having to be there with his Mom for pete's sake!   I managed to stay awake until midnight and over the radio came one great peal from Big Ben and then outside lots of fireworks and bells and "Auld Lang Syne" on the radio.

Good grief - I had more in my journal than I realized when I started this.  I'm going to break off here and post the rest in another posting.  And I only have a few more pictures so it will be boring.  Isn't it nice I got a better camera!?