London, 2004

London, England
November, 2004




Hullo, Guv'nor!

There are more pedestrian accidents in England than anywhere else, we have
learned. Could it be that almost everyone else in the world drives on the right side of the
road and they don't? With so many foreign tourists in London, large white
signs are painted on the ground at pedestrian crossings advising people as
to which direction to look while crossing. I know how I had been driving
when I had the rental car and so I ignore the painted advice: I look in both
directions. (Someone who drives like I did could be coming.) This is handy
since we've been hoofing it about town a lot; things are really close by.

We've been in London for almost two weeks. We have been packing each day
with activities. If I wrote down everything that we had done, the letter
would be so long that you would not read it through. I'll just give you
some of the highlights.

We're 'palaced-out.' Just as Wales has more castles per square mile than
anywhere else, it seems that London has more palaces per square mile than
anywhere else and we seem to have visited most of them, or those parts that
are still standing. Some are pretty old. Westminster Palace (1,000 rooms),
built by the son of William the Conqueror almost 1,000 years ago, houses the
British Parliament. We also visited Kensington Palace, the home of Princess
Diana from the time of her marriage until her death. It was also the place
where Queen Victoria was born. Henry VIII also spent time there. There is
a display of the dresses of Queen Elizabeth and Princess Diana. Being royal
doesn't mean that one has good taste.

Of course we watched the 'Changing of the Guard' at Buckingham Palace. It
took too long, a bunch of guys shouted words that I can only assume were in
English and other guys stamped their feet. Then they marched out. An hour
and a half of my life down the drain. And as an added extra, their bright
red tunics were completely covered by their dull grey winter overcoats.





Sarah and the Queen's Life Guards.


The changing of the 'Queen's Life Guards' was better for several reasons.
Sure, they also shouted things in some language that I couldn't understand
(but probably English), but they did it on horseback with bright red cloaks
and shiny gold helmets. (No feet stamping here, but defecating and urinating
(copious urinating) did go on (by the horses, of course) Also, the whole
thing only took half an hour. I wondered, however, if these guys are the
'Life Guards,' how can they dive into the water and save anybody wearing
cloaks and carrying swords. Maybe the swords are for the sharks.


Sarah and Yeoman Warders (Beefeaters) at the Tower of London


The Tower of London is a misnomer. It was built over a period of centuries
and comprises palaces and numerous towers. The palace in the center, the
White Tower, was built by William the Conqueror almost a thousand years ago.
In the tower complex is the vault where Britain's crown jewels are stored.
Sarah took three or four trips through that building. Some of the
diamonds are so large (the Star of India, for example) that they don't look
real. To go through this building, one passes through a series of small
rooms where rails send the line of visitors back and forth just as in Disney
World. During peak season, it can take several hours to see the crown
jewels. For us, there were no lines and no wait. (And for anyone else who
happed to be there that day.) Even with no lines, we spent almost six hours
at the tower peering into every nook and cranny and reading every sign.

Historically, Sir Walter Raleigh was imprisoned there for many years (along
with his wife, children, and servants) he was eventually beheaded, but
elsewhere; two wives of Henry VIII were beheaded there; and lot of religious
dissidents were 'questioned.' There is a display of 'questioning' devices;
some of which are pretty nasty.

After closing, we returned to the tower for the 'Ceremony of the Keys' in
which they lock the tower for the night. This ceremony is available only by
invitation and one has to apply sometimes two months in advance. This being
off season, we applied two weeks ahead and got tickets (no charge). It is
eerie to be in this ancient fortification after dark with a guy carrying a
lantern. No wonder people thought that ghosts dwelled here.

We visited numerous museums of different kinds. We went to the British
Museum, of course; we spent two and a half days there and didn't see it all.
It was a big surprise. The museum was organized 250 years ago, the
current building was built 150 years ago; I expected to see stodgy. dusty
displays. Everything is relatively new (the cases that is, not what's
inside), The displays were redone in the 1980s.


There is an extremely large collection of artifacts that were plundered from
Egypt, Rome, Greece, and the near east. Greece wants their stuff, now
called the Elgin Marbles after the guy who brought them to England from
Greece, returned. The BM says that they got them fair and square from the people who
originally stole it and they are not giving it back. {For the controversy,
check out these sites: http://www.culture.gr
http://www.thebritishmuseum.ac.uk/gr/grparth.html }



Sarah and one of the Elgin Marbles at the British Museum.

Because of budgetary constraints, not all rooms are open each day and some
rooms have not been open for several years. It was only on our third time
back that we were able to see the clock room which had been favorably
recommended to us. It was worth the time :-).

The entire open central court of the museum was redone for the millennium.
It is now in white marble and is the largest glass-covered plaza a. in
Europe b. in England c. in London d. on the block [Choose one, I don't
remember.] But it's big and beautiful.

The Museum of Natural History was a gem. It's collection displays, of course, were
modern and adequate, but the building itself is a masterpiece of Victorian
architecture. There are halls, alcoves and columns everywhere. The detail
on the columns and ceiling are themselves works of art. I could have shot
an entire roll of film of just the interior details.



Allen at the Museum of Natural History


While there we took a tour of their 'Darwin Centre.' They have hundreds of thousands
(or millions) of organisms in bottles and jars. Because of budgetary
constraints, some of the specimens are in food containers and they are 30
years behind in their classifying of organisms. We were excited to see some
of the original samples brought back by Charles Darwin from his 'Beagle'
voyage. Really big specimens, such as the Komodo Dragon are kept in steel
tanks in the basement. The Darwin Centre is only a few years old and is not
yet complete.


Across the street is the Victoria and Albert Museum. Visiting the V&A is like visiting
your grandmother's attic (if your grandmother was the Queen of England). It
is full of decorative art, painting, statues, brick-a-brack, furniture, etc.
from around the world (The Victorians collected everything.). It's like the
Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC, but smaller and with more tchachkas. (The big statues are in the British Museum.)

As you know, we have sometimes seen exhibits in different cities as they
traveled around the U.S. The V&A had the Christopher Dresser show that we
had enjoyed so much when we saw it recently at NYC's Cooper-Hewitt. The British
Museum had a small Dresser exhibit, but we were disappointed to see that the
items on display at the BM lacked any of the features that make his work so
special.

Also on the same street as the V&A and BM was the Science and Technology Museum. Not much new for us, but well presented. There was an interesting collection historical
medical impliments and a collection of scientific instruments that were
collected by King George III.

In the U.S., we learn of George III as the king who imposed the great
taxes and suffering on the American Colonies
which led to the American Revolution. Here we learned of a differend side
of him. He was a parton of the arts and sciences and a avid collector. The
Queen's Gallery at Buckingham Palace had an entire show of things which he
and Queen Caroline collected; very impressive. Because of his
contributions, Herschel originally named his newly discovered heavenly body
Georgius; now it's known as Uranus.

The Industrial Revolution centered in Britain and the Science and Technology
Museum has lots of the original stuff. It was awe-inspiring for me to walk
past these historical machines; to Sarah it had all of the inspiration of a
hardware store.


Prince Albert Memorial. We know that Queen Victoria loved the guy very much, but this seems a overly ornate..

The National Gallery (of Art) has paintings from the big names in the art
world. Very few from the Impressionists, which is fine for me; I like a
painting to look like what it's supposed to be, not 'connect-the-dots').
Sarah wanted to see Van Gogh's 'Sunflowers,' but it turned out that he made
four of them and this one wasn't the one that she liked. People have often
told me that the European museums have better quality of art work than
American museums, I couldn't tell that from what we've seen here; it's
good, but not better.

The Museum of London was an exciting place for us to visit. It is built
along the Roman wall of Londinium and has artifacts dating back to 300,000
b.p. Stone Age people, Celts, Romans, Norse, Saxon and others have all left
their impression here, and this place has the physical evidence on display.
There are so many Roman artifacts beneath the city that street workers
finding objects just note the location and send the item off to the museum.
Archeologists are called in only for large construction sites.

You may have heard of the cheap prices of the London theatre tickets.
Fuggeddaboudit! But we did go to see four plays anyway: 'The Producers'
(with Nathan Lane), 'Becket' ( with two stars who are world famous in
England), Agatha Christie's 'Mousetrap', and Andrew Lloyd Webber's new
play, 'The Woman in White' (with Michael Crawford). Respectively: We
laughed as much as we did when we saw it in NYC in late August; good, but
Richard Burton and Peter O'Toole did a better job; the scenery was realistic and
none of the actors bumped into the furniture, so it was okay; a new play
with unique scenery: projections on curved moving walls and a rotating
floor ala 'Les Miz.'

We had wanted to see a Shakespearian play while here, but the Royal
Shakespeare Company is between performances; Hamlet opens the day after
we're scheduled to leave. We toured the Globe Theatre, rebuilt near
Shakespeare's original in 1999 with the first thatched roof in London since
they were banned after the Great Fire of 1666. This one has sprinklers.
There is no roof over the stage or the cheap standing gallery (five pounds),
so performances are only in the warm months. A display among the exhibits
outlines the controvercy over the true authorship of the Shaksperian plays.
(Shakespear, Marlow, or Bacon) http://www.shakespeares-globe.org

St Paul's Cathedral was a 'beacon of hope' to the people of London during
the 'Blitz.' When we visited there, we went into what is the largest crypt
a. in Europe b. in England c. in London d. on the block [Choose one.
I don't remember this one either.] . We saw the tombs of Lord Nelson
(defeated the French at Trafalgar), the Duke of Wellington (defeated
Napoleon at Waterloo), and Alexander Fleming (discovered Penicillin).


The Right Honourable Lord Mayor of London is shown to the people.



Each November a new Lord Mayor of London is selected and shown to the
people. We attended the 'Showing' of the new Lord Mayor. It was an
hour-long parade of marching bands, floats, and military displays. The
Queen's Household Cavalry escort the Lord Mayor in his nifty gold coach
drawn by six horses. [by protocol, the Queen gets eight horses, nobles get
four and regular important guys get two.]

We have been using a guide book, but opinions differ. The book gave a lower
rating to the Museum of London than we would have, and gave a top rating to
the Tate-Modern which would be a major disappointment to anyone who went to
NYC's MoMA, except that it was free (as are most of the public museums
here).

Of course we did all of the regular tourist things: heard Big Ben, saw
Westminster Abbey, sat in on debates in both houses of Parliament (to see
British government inaction), walked through many
neighborhoods, and saw more monuments and memorials that we can remember
(it's like pigeon heaven). At least Princess Dianna got a tasteful flowing
fountain, which opened this past summer.

We spent an entire day at Hampton Court Palace, a huge conglomerate that
Henry VIII took from someone who fell out of favor. (It's good to be the
king) After one of the guided tours (they have several as well as an audio
tour) we had a long talk with one of the guides and exchanged information.


The huge Banqueting Hall is all that remains of Whitehall Palace, the
largest in London, which was destroyed in a fire less that 100 years after
it was built. It boasts the only Peter Paul Rubens paintings (on the
ceiling) that are still in their original location. After the English Civil
War, King Charles I had his head chopped off on a balcony. (Sometimes it's
not good to be the king.)

Some of the other places that we saw or visited are listed below:
The Tower Bridge
The Jewish Museum

In an interesting scheme (this word has a different connotation here), The
Duke of Wellington (the one in 1948, not the one who defeated Napoleon, but
a descendent), in order to avoid the high inheritance tax gave the palace
(really a big mansion) to the National Trust with the proviso that the Dukes
of Wellington can continue to live there. The plan works as long as there
is a male heir to inherit the title. That's why the nobles like to have at
least two sons: an heir and a spare.

The Duke's place is filled with Napoleonic trophies, souvenirs, and gifts
from grateful people. The most elaborate was a golden table setting from
the King of Portugal, the largest a marble statue of Napoleon that Napoleon
commissioned. It shows 15 foot tall Napoleon nude (except for a fig leaf).
Napoleon kept it hidden.

Our flight to Iceland is Wednesday and we plan to be home for Thanksgiving.

Cheerio,
A and S

To read about the next portion of this trip, "Iceland," click here.