Day Two - Part Two (wandering around greater London)

Our original schedule called for a visit to the Tower of London, but we knew we just didn’t have the time for that so we decided to do the British Museum instead. This turned out to be the day of exploring around greater London.

After a few misses we found the correct bus to take, but since it wasn't a very direct route we decided to take a taxi instead. JoAnne flagged one down (they're easy to find in London) checked the fare and since it wouldn't be very much we hopped on board. I’ve long wanted to take a British taxi. It was fun and spacious.

We had a great time gabbingwith the driver. After only a few minutes our cabby dropped us at the front gate and off we went.

The British Museum

The museum is like a building around a court. Inside they have built the circular building with a library and the skylight covers it all.

EGYPT

The first section that we visited was the Egyptian. JoAnne was looking for the Rosetta stone and as you can see, she found it.

These are a close-up of hieroglyphs from a sarcophagus.

I like the look of this ram. The museum was great. So many of the pieces were ones that I had seen in my art history classes so long ago.

It was always fun for us to find fiber artifacts in the museums. We took a large number pictures of circles also known as spindle whorls.

This is a 14-15th century Egyptian spindle with a piece of woven cloth. I was so excited to see it.

There are no shortage of Pharoah sculptures. I didn't get his name.

Next entry: More of the British Museum.

Day Two - St. Paul's

Tuesday morning we were up and about early. After breakfast (not steak and kidney pie) we took off by tube to St. Paul’s Cathedral.

This is a really neat sculpture of a mother and son. JoAnne took this one.
the facade of St. Paul's

It is located in the center of a district with many modern buildings that actually contrast rather nicely. Unfortunately, much of the exterior was obscured by scaffolding since they are working on restoration. The church is huge. I wasn’t as gaga about the interior as JoAnne: I must confess a preference for Gothic.

The ceilings were amazing. Most of the decoration was by mosaic and it was very colorful.

JoAnne is with me as I write this post. She says that going in to St. Paul's was amazing, except for the three most painful words: "NO INTERIOR PHOTOGRAPHY". She thought the statues and memorials really glowed in the interior light and that they were extremely impressive. The guard at the bottom of the steps warned us that the steps were one-way, narrow, steep and enclosed (did you know that JoAnne is claustrophobic and afraid of heights?!) But I dragged her up there anyway.

We climbed the 163 to the whispering Gallery overlooking the interior great central dome which was designed by Christopher Wren. The Whispering Gallery has an entirely different feel than the main floor - even the name commands that you keep quiet.

I found the sign for the Stone Gallery and insisted that we continue up another 150 some steps to the Gallery which is outside and commands great views of London. JoAnne took several photos of the panoramic view (which included amazing numbers of cranes.)

Then yet another 160 some to the Gold Gallery which were grating so that we could see where we had been. At the top is a sign "Mind your head". JoAnne said if she had she wouldn't have climbed up there.

the view looking down on the way up to the golden gallery

The Gold Gallery is also outside and very near the top of the central dome. At the top we were about 333 meters above the floor of the church and we both agree that the views were worth the climb. As we were going up we met a nice family with two little boys, Sam (6) and Jack (4) who were visiting London from Yorkshire on their mid-term break. One nice thing about following two little boys up the stairs was that they took frequent breaks which meant we also took breaks and that kept us from looking like total wooses.

After traveling to the top we went down to the crypt. Before heading down there we talked with one of the priests. Ironically as soon as we told him we were from Iowa, his eyes lit up an he started talking about our presidential election. His job is to call all the visitors to a moment of prayer and silence every hour on the hour. We sat and prayed with people from many nations and then followed him in the Lord’s prayer.

In the crypt I saw Lord Nelson’s tomb among many others. In the mosaic floor pattern at the foot of his tomb were two crocodiles and at the other end they had a copy of a prayer he wrote out before a battle (I don’t know from that if it was Trafalgar or not) that was amazing: asking for victory without the stain of misdeeds by anyone and mercy from the victors, committing himself to the Lord’s care and ending with "Amen, Amen, Amen". (This is a poor paraphrase – his words were much better.) I was very touched.

Okay, I looked online and found a copy of the prayer. It was written before the battle of Trafalgar in which Lord Nelson lost his life.

May the Great God, whom I worship, grant to my Country, and for the benefit of Europe in general, a great and glorious Victory; and may no misconduct in any one tarnish it; and may humanity after Victory be the predominant feature in the British Fleet. For myself, individually, I commit my life to Him who made me, and may his blessing light upon my endeavours for serving my Country faithfully. To Him I resign myself and the just cause which is entrusted to me to defend. Amen. Amen. Amen.

the shell of a church that has been turned into a rose garden
Perfect photo op - for the initiated, a distaff is the thing that holds fiber while you are spinning (mine is made from handspun yarn worked with macrame into a specialized bracelet.)

From St. Paul’s you can see the Millennium footbridge across the Thames so we did the logical thing; we walked across the Thames before crossing back and heading on to our next stop of the day.

Rebecca on the bridge

JoAnne on the bridge

This is for my son Eric - they studied Shakespeare in school this year.

Day One - part two

We knew we had barely scratched the surface at the V&A. But after having a quick and delicious snack we decided to head on to Harrods. Since we had our weekly transportation passes we decided to do some impromptu sightseeing so we hopped on a bus which took us past Hyde Park, Harrod’s and into a shopping district.

Then we did a little souvenir shopping and bussed and walked back to Harrods. I love walking through London neighborhoods. The architecture and the little parks are wonderful and varied.

Harrods was fun but I didn’t do much shopping. Just a little something for Eric and Jeff, Turkish Delight for Eric (The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe) and some Harrods guitar picks for Jeff. They had a large guitar show going on - "Harrods Rocks". Jeff, I tried to take pictures of ones you might find interesting.

As we were wandering through the store, we ended up in kitchen appliances. Now believe it or not the Brits did recognize our accents as being from across the pond and one salesman pulled out a box of Krispy Kremes to show us. Aaagh, KFC, Burger King, McDonalds and Krispy Kremes in London - You just can't get away from some things.
Soon after this our feet got the better of us and we headed home to our hotel, dinner and an evening of downloading (or in my case trying to figure out why my computer and camera were not speaking to each other before crashing. This would be the end of a great day, except the neighbors were loud and the room was overheated. Oh well, you can't have everything.

London-Day One, the V & A (finally!)

We arrived at Heathrow just before 7AM and after a long tube ride, packed in with locals on their way to work, we arrived at our hotel.
Earl’s Court is a reviving neighborhood and our hotel is on a cute little street with townhomes, many of which have been turned into hotels. Penywern St “T”’s with Earl’s Court Rd. where there are lots of little shops and restaurants.

We felt quite at home in our little neighborhood. The tube station is a block from our hotel so it is easy to get about to our destinations. London has great public transportation. We bought seven day passes good for all underground and bus transportation within a certain zone, so we have been hopping on and off busses, walking about till we find the right stop and hopping on and off again.

So we stowed our baggage and took off for the V&A (the Victoria and Albert Museum).

We spent a couple hours there, a little overwhelmed and then started exploring London. At this point we had hardly seen the outside since we had done most of our traveling by underground. It's hard to pick a sampling of pictures from the museum. There was just so much. It was incredible. We took a break from oggling (our feet were already complaining and we were getting hungry.) We had a great snack at the museum in an incredibly decorated room. The goal when the museum was first started was to have tile decorating most of the areas. The dining room is one that was completed.

This is one of the stairwells, not the dining room, but it gives you an idea of the style of decoration.

Well, this is a brief and incomplete overview of the first half of our first day in London. More to come...