england: london
where to start writing about london? a city of many superlatives, at the same time managing to be friendly and easy to get along with. lets just start by saying that everyones bucket list should include a visit to london. in the words of samuel johnson:
"You find no man, at all intellectual, who is willing to leave London. No, Sir, when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford."
that pretty much sums up london - enough stuff there to fill a lifetime of urban exploration.
in no particular order, we kind of wandered through the city - after disembarking at victoria station we ambled towards parliament buildings, and came to westminister abbey:
in 1042, the curiously named edward the confessor started to build this church, presumably so he could have a nice burial place. the bad news was that the church was completed 25 years after he died. but the good news was that even though it wasnt done, they buried him there anyway. oh, but wait, theres more bad news: his church was demolished in 1245 by henry III to make way for his own bigger, better and more glorious burial place. which just happens to be the building you see above.
since 1066, its been used for all coronations and also royal weddings. also, lots of famous people have been buried there. chaucer, isaac newton and charles darwin's remains all lie under its floor.
moving on we hit the tower of london. actually its not called that, its called 'Her Majesty's Royal Palace and Fortress'. as you notice, no mention of 'prison' anywhere. seems it was more fortress than prison. built in 1066 by a chap called william the conqueror (you might notice that 1066 keeps on cropping up? more about that year and william anon). so really it was built as a palace, and was pretty spiffy by the standards of the day until it fell into disrepair and became more of a prison. now, it has changed again and is a world heritage site and major tourist attraction.
round the corner of the tower of london, the iconic tower bridge straddles the thames. remember the nursery rhyme, 'london bridge is burning down?' well this is emphatically not the bridge to which the rhyme refers. that one is much uglier so everyone basically ignores it. tower bridge, built in 1894, is prettier and thus gets all the attention. since its a lot more recent, its made of steel and concrete, but the exterior is clad in a rather pleasing granite and stone finish.
onwards to the tate modern - modern art is not usually my thing, but i had wanted to see the gallery since it was built in a, of all things, disused power station. it turned out that we had a great time. not so much because of the art work (generally a bit strange) but because of good company and our own sense of humor....
crispy was our company. here she is talking to 'jeff.' they had a special exhibition on roy lichtenstein who did these cartoon style pop images that you probably have seen somewhere - we did our best to position ourselves strategically in front of his pictures. (if you want to buy one....the average price these days is about $45,000,000).
a characteristic of his painting was the words in comic style bubbles and his naming of the paintings by the words in the bubble. he also used the dots that comics of the day used to give the impression of different colors.
in case you were wondering why you have never seen the 2 famous paintings above, they had a room with some pics but the words were all magnetic and you could move them around to make your own captions - we spent a long time in this room...it doesnt take much to amuse our small minds!
more to come....next stop coventry.
