LONDON 3B: The Globe, the Tate Modern, the National Theater

 

Shakespeare's Globe Theater

Th 26 May 

This is the continuation of the post about Thursday, 26 May. It was written on that day but is posting late, as photos weren't added until now. All of these activities were in London's South Bank area (on the southern bank of the Thames).

Shakespeare's Globe

Our first destination today was Shakespeare's Globe Theater, where Doug had booked an 11am tour, a few days ago. We had originally hoped to watch a performance there as well, but that would have to have been booked even farther in advance. However I'm very happy we got to do the theater tour at least; it did not disappoint.

I've heard about so much about the recreation of Shakespeare's Globe theater (opened in 1997); it was very cool to finally see it and sit in it. It's actually much nicer than I thought it would be. I knew they tried to replicate the original 1599 and 1614 versions of the theater, so I expected it would be pretty rustic. But the seating and stage decor is actually nicer and more colorful than I had imagined. Yes, I can believe you might want a cushion after sitting a long time on the bench seating, but with the thrust stage and cozy theater size, I think it'd be great to watch a performance there.

Our tour guide was very energetic and told us about the history of Shakespeare and getting the original theater established, and about the various efforts to establish a replica later on. She also helped us imagine what it would have been like to go to the theater in Shakespeare's time—what was different about performances (e.g. no female performers), and also what was different about audience behavior and comforts (e.g. NO TOILETS...). 

The organization that runs the Globe also built a small, fully indoor theater in the same complex, the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse. Our guide mentioned that performances there are often lit only by candlelight. That would be something to see! Sigh, another item to add to our growing Next-Time-We-Go-to-England list.

The Tate Modern

After a nice lunch at a nearby Turkish restaurant, we continued on to the Tate Modern. It's wonderful that many museums in the UK are free; it encourages you to pop in, even for short visits, and it means anyone at any income level can go (though some special exhibitions do require a fee). Like the Globe, I had heard of the Tate before the trip; unfortunately, unlike the Globe, I found the Tate a little disappointing. I think part of the disappointment is from not understanding its focus beforehand. I thought it would be like the great MOMA (Museum of Modern Art) in New York, or even like the SF MOMA, that have classics of modern art as well as newer artists. The Tate seems to be more focused on current artists, and to its credit, featured a lot of female and non-white artists. However sometimes the pieces seemed more uneven in quality and connectedness. 

There were pieces that we liked though; below are photos of two of them. One is a performance art piece by Lee Mingwei that involved a ritualistic sweeping of rice by two performers. You could watch it from different levels of the museum. It had viewers, including us, mesmerized. Another was a small "artist room" devoted to one artist, Phyllida Barlow, a sculptor,  It included a video of her talking about her work, which added a lot to the experience.

The National Theater: The Father and the Assassin

We felt we needed to see some kind of theatrical performance in London. One of our friends especially loves the theater in London, and encouraged us to go. I think that friend typically goes to West End shows more (kind of like Broadway shows in NYC), but tickets can be hard to get. Based on glowing reviews, Doug ended up getting us tickets to a serious drama at the National Theater, "The Father and the Assassin."

It turned out to be an interesting, excellent production, and also a show that is particularly relevant to England, because it takes place during the ending of Britain's colonial rule of India. It tells the story of the real person who murdered Gandhi, Nathuram Godse, but along the way it illuminates various aspects of the times he lived in: why India was fighting to shake off colonial rule, how Gandhi himself evolved, and how Godse evolved and became a radicalized Hindu nationalist. The playwright and performers succeeded in making a complex political situation into compelling theater. You root for both Ganse and Gandhi, and you understand more about the challenges India faced. It was very good, very creative story telling.

[Photo of a scene in the play is from a review.]

Nightlife along the Thames

After we got out of the show, it turned out that the riverbank by the Thames was just bustling with nighttime activity. The National Theater, where we were at, has three different auditoriums, so other shows than ours were letting out, too. Plus there were lots of cafes and small eateries open by the river. We were heading back to our hotel, but Doug commented that "some of these people are just starting their night."

Next Post

Tomorrow is the Sky Garden, plus a search for the Zari Gallery.

A favorite memory from our 1999 trip was 
having ice cream at a show; in London you
can do that. Doug surprised me at this 
intermission with a tub of gelato!!

Doug liked that the Tate has a floor 0.

LONDON 4A: Latest dinner so far

Spring roll with pea flowers

Fr 27 May 

(I added these dates to show the day I'm writing about, vs. the day post is published)

Once again, I was too tired to finish Friday's post, or catch up on finishing Thursday! I did write most of the narrative section for Friday at least; I like to write the narrative on the same day if I can, because one point of the blog is to capture impressions at the time of seeing things. 

On Friday we saw the Sky Garden, Zari Gallery, and the British Museum. I will publish that post once I've added pictures, but here's a small tidbit about Friday in the meantime—about food, even. Today (Saturday) is likely to be somewhat less busy, so maybe I'll catch up tonight. It'll be our last full day here...

 Dinner at 9:45pm

The British Museum is open late on Fridays, which was both a good and a bad thing. It meant we stayed there til 8ish, and by the time we got back to our hotel—walking back to the Totteningham Court Road stop, then Central line back to Bank, then a convoluted Tube transition to connect to Monument on the District line and riding back to Earl's Court—it was 9:30ish. Fortunately we found a lovely vegan Thai place only a couple blocks away, that was open til 10:30. It was very good—I recommend it if you're ever in the Earl's Court area—Mali Vegan Thai.

LONDON 3A: part 1 of our day in the South Bank

We're staying where the red center marker is; yesterday we
went out to Kew Gardens (orange market on left), today
we went to the South Bank area, just by the river Thames.

Th 26 May 

I was able to complete the entire narrative portion of the post about this day, Thursday, but I fell asleep before adding photos. For now I'll just post the intro section, which does have a map and photo, and plan to do a continuation post (LONDON 3B) tomorrow. I'll also say that it was another great day.

Today was more of a real London city day. We spent the day in the South Bank area, where you can find the Globe (as in the recreation of Shakespeare's Globe theater), the Tate Modern (a museum of modern art), and the National Theater. St. Paul's Cathedral is nearby, too, on the north side of the river, but we didn't go there today. It's wonderful how easy it is to get places. On both days we've been able to get to where we want to go on the District line of the Tube, without having to transfer.

London feels very different from any of the other places on this trip; it's the only big city we're seeing, and it's a huge, sophisticated, international city. Already we've noticed hearing lots of different languages all the time, which we actually remember noticing on our trip 23 years ago as well. Everything's bigger and busier. Even the cars, on average, are a little bigger. In Bath and elsewhere on the trip, cars were noticeably small (on average). SUVs or minivans are still rare in London, but there are more regular sedan size cars, and to my surprise I still see the classic black London taxis (also a remembered feature from our earlier trip). 

TO BE CONTINUED

LONDON 2: COVID scare, giant lily pads, pyramidal hedges

Waterlily House, Kew Gardens

We 25 May 

COVID scare

Doug woke up feeling a little under the weather. Nothing like a fever, but a bit of scratchy throat. Of course the first worry that comes to mind is COVID. I reminded him that I had brought 4 of the free testing kits available to anyone in the US (you can get up to 8 kits per household). 

A line at T would have been positive

Doug took the test and whew, it came up negative! We then proceeded as originally planned, but Doug wore a mask much of today, and I wore a mask on the Tube. Every time we've ridden the Tube there's been at least one other person wearing a mask, sometimes four or five, but most are maskless at this point.

Update on COVID testing for return to the US

A good friend who has lived in England, and has been back here recently, told me this about COVID testing for US re-entry: "...the US accepts lateral flow tests. It's only 35 pounds at the airport. Super fast, easy, and convenient!"

I told Doug, but he was inclined to keep our Sunday AM testing appointments, since he'd already made them. Our daughter had told us she'd made an appointment in London for her visiting boyfriend, when he went back to the US, so that's what Doug did. It's a little cheaper than 35 pounds, but we have to go there. Anyway, it's something to be aware of.

It was a Common Wood Pigeon!

Hurray, I myself didn't know the answer to yesterday's bird identification question, but given that three different people supplied the same answer—Common Wood Pigeon—I assume that is the correct answer! I looked it up, and it is a European bird, which made me happy. I *thought* it was a novel bird (to me) and it was. Kudos to the bird people!

By the way, I've been quite tickled to see so many London Plane trees here in London. No wonder they got that name. One at Kew Gardens is huge and around 250 years old. We also saw one in Bath that was over 220 years old. Go trees!

Kew Gardens, aka The Royal Botanical Gardens

Today we took the Tube out to Kew Gardens, which we knew was a famous botanical garden. We've been to a LOT of botanical gardens, though, so we kind of expected more of the same. We started off on our own, and went to the Palm House, and the Temperate House, two large, impressive Victorian-era green houses containing, you guessed it, palms and temperate zone plants. The greenhouses were great, but I have to say my strongest impression of the Palm House was how much it is rusting away with the constant moisture, and how ornate the Victorians were. There's wrought iron spiral staircases that let you walk along an upper story viewing area. Which is not to say that the plant collections aren't fabulous, but that they weren't my main impression, at that point. 

(I later found out the Palm House will be fixed up at some point, but it will be a very big deal, because among other things, all the plants need to be relocated in the meantime. They already fixed up the Temperate House, but it took five years and a lot of money.)

Fortunately we elected to try for the 1:30 free tour, and luckily we got a great tour guide and a great tour group (of just five people besides us). I'd been afraid the guide would repeat what we'd already seen, but she took us to completely different areas: the Rock Garden, the Princess of Wales Conservatory, the Alpine House. 

Rock Garden in front of Alpine House

Alpine House interior, filled with dry air

Plus the guide knew a lot about plants, as well as about the Kew Gardens history, and the group as a whole had a nice sense of interest and camaraderie. We kept going for an hour and a half; the tour is usually just an hour. We learned about flowers that change color after being pollinated (that explains the two colors of flowers on horse chestnut trees, too), and about a tree that has bluer foliage in the sun, greener foliage in the parts of it that are more shaded. Her tour helped inspire a sense of wonder at all the forms plants take, and all the clever coping mechanisms they have.

If I were advising a first-time visitor to Kew Gardens, first of all I'd say the place is enormous. For repeat visitors, it must be great because you could probably find new things to look at every time. For first-timers, I'd recommend the area the guide took us to: the Princess of Wales Conservatory, which is more recently built and contains a broad variety of plants in different rooms, the Alpine House, the Rock Garden. Try to get a good tour guide, like the one we had. Plus I would definitely recommend the Waterlily House, which we went to later, on our own. For me, seeing a giant water LILy pad was probably the highlight of our visit (see photo at top of post)! I also enjoyed artificially shaped hedges...

There's a four or five story tall "Treetop Walkway" which has a kind of wow factor, but less botanical info we felt. We thought the walkway would take more advantage of being high up in the tree canopies to talk about what happens there, but it didn't, though it did have many kid-oriented factoids about trees.

One interesting thing the Gardens is doing this summer is that they have a number of artworks scattered around, that have to do with the topic of plants as food. There's certainly the space for changing exhibits like this, and it adds interest and topicality. I would like to have visited more of the installations, if we weren't already so exhausted by looking at everything else. At least Kew Gardens helps you out by having a number of places that offer refreshments and have toilet facilities; when you get bogged down mid-afternoon, you can get a cappuccino and lemon drizzle cake at the Orangery instead of having to go back to the entrance area.

Much of Kew is indeed similar to other botanical gardens, but what made it stand out in the end was:

• a great tour guide
• the size and scope of their plant collection; they are actively involved in trying to save rarer plants from extinction, and I did see unusual plants I hadn't seen before
• the extent of their plant information; there's lots of informative panels, not just plant labels
• the evocation of another era in the older Victorian era greenhouses and things like a pagoda (!), plus the carefully manicured "Broad Walk" also reflects an era of promenading
• the info and art installations having to do with issues of the day, e.g. the dangers of monoculture (our guide reminded us that most of the food people eat is wheat, rice, and/or corn, when many other kinds of grains and edible plants exist)

Next Post

Tomorrow my wonderful Activities Planner has booked us on a tour of the Globe Theater; we also hope to peek at the Tate Art Museum, and then go to an evening theater performance. Some activities, like the Globe Theater, you need to book at least somewhat in advance, or else desired time slots will fill up.

It will be a long day tomorrow, so it will probably be a very short blog post, or I may skip it and catch up Friday night for both days, or maybe catch up post-trip. I think I've already mentioned I want to do a post-trip post about our food, one for sure on Favorite Signs, and one on favorite memories from the trip.

LONDON 1: The train, the Tube

Tu 24 May

London! It's so bustling!

When we got off our train at King's Cross station, I felt some chills going down my spine. London is just such a historic, major place to be. And especially at a place like King's Cross station, you feel like you are at a crossroads, where people are coming and going and stuff is happening all over.

A last walk around York

We checked out of our B&B at 10am (their checkout time), but left our luggage there for an hour as our train wasn't until 12:02. We used the 10-11 time for a last walk around York, going through the Museum Gardens right near us, and by the river. Can any bird aficionados tell me what the blue-headed bird is?

Taking the train

We retrieved our luggage and walked it and ourselves over to the nearby York train station, arriving with plenty of time to spare. Enough time for me to hunt up a sandwich for the ride. While I knew there'd probably be food available on board, I also knew it might be both more expensive and less convenient, so I happily found a tuna/cucumber sandwich, cookie, and drink for the ride, at a Pret A Manger.

We boarded the train and had a comfortable 2 hour 40 minute ride to London. It was supposed to be 2 hours 20 minutes, but there was a slight delay due to an overhead wire problem. I remembered from York's railroad museum, that the York-London train trip was once more like seven hours, and even now, by car it's a four-hour road trip. It's great to be able to get to London so quickly and effortlessly now, and Doug continues to marvel at how quiet and smooth the trains are here.

Although I never did check out the train cafe (which now offers online ordering and delivery to your seat!), it was funny that the conductor gave a plug for the train cafe a couple of times during his announcements. He said it had a "stupendous array of refreshments"!

Arriving, taking the Tube, tap-to-pay

After exiting the awesome King's Cross station, it was not hard to find the Tube, right by the station. It was a little harder to figure out which line to take, in what direction, but I think Doug had scoped it out earlier when he booked our hotel. We took the Picadilly line to Earl's Court (can you find it on the map?). The Tube was as I remembered it from years ago, filled with an impressively diverse set of folks of all kinds. I think only 3 or 4 in our full car wore masks, but it was the first time on the trip that I thought more seriously about putting one on (I didn't, but may on future rides).

In the photo below of the "Help Point," I thought it was cool that it can provide Visitor Info as well as emergency assistance.

Can you find the blue Picadilly line going from King's
Cross at upper right down to Earl's Court at lower left?

One thing about the Tube, and about payments in general, is that contactless paying is BY FAR the norm here. We used our tap-to-pay Visa cards at the Tube turnstiles, rather than having to get tokens or use any special Tube card. Luckily, just before the trip we had renewed those Visa cards, and they were upgraded to ones that can do contactless payments. We've also used Apple or Google Pay on our phones, which can be used with regular cards. Occasionally we've run into a small shop that takes only cash, and we've had to skip them—we haven't bothered to get any physical English currency so far in the trip, and I don't think we'll need to. (Be sure your card doesn't charge for foreign currency conversion though; ours don't.)

Earl's Court

We are staying at a nice hotel very close to the Tube station. The area seems to be a very pleasant one. According to various online descriptions, there's no main attraction right here, so it's typically not a destination in and of itself, but it's a place where there are a lot of hotels and hostels. It also has a McDonald's, Burger King, and KFC all within a couple blocks of each other!

We had an early dinner and walked around the neighborhood, then retired to our hotel where Doug worked industriously on how we are going to get the COVID test required for re-entry to the US (you can do it at the airport but it's like $150 there...). 

I'm tickled that our room door
has a knocker on it