LONDON 5: Last looks...

Parliament Square with flags of all the Commonwealth
nations, plus Big Ben on the right, London Eye at center back

Sa 28 May 

(written late Saturday)

Today was a more unplanned day, which allowed us to take some last looks at London. It's actually one of our favorite things to do when traveling—just walking around, looking at different parts of a city, and running into serendipitous sights, like the fashion you'll see at the end of this post.

Orange = Thurs.; Yellow = Friday; Purple = Sat.
The top purple marker is the Kings Cross area, the
next lower down is Piccadilly, the bottom three
are Buckingham Palace, Westm. Abbey, Big Ben
The red one, lower left, is our hotel.

Google London and the Kings Cross area

Our first task of the day was to try to see the Google London office in the King's Cross area. Doug had brought his Google badge; a Googler can typically gain access to any Google office, worldwide, with their badge. Google offices are often situated in the heart of cities, in prime locations with good views, so they can be worth tracking down. At the Kings Cross Google office, we were able to get in, but doors to the outside terraces were closed on weekends, so we couldn't get as good a view as we were hoping for. 

Round building is King's Cross Tube station; long building on right is King's Cross train station. Foreground is Google terrace that was locked.

Still, it was fun to wander around the London office, and afterwards we had great urban life viewing in Granary Square, a huge public space filled with a big grid of unpredictable spurting fountains, and currently also featuring award-winning photographs from a travel photography contest. We had lunch in the area, and it was a fun, very lively city scene.

F&M Shopping

Beloved Son & Daughter-in-Law had made a few requests for us to pick up at the snazzy fine food department store Fortnum and Mason. We tried to find the items at a smaller branch store in the Kings Cross area, but decided we'd have better success at the main store on Piccadilly—plus we hadn't been to that area yet on this trip, so were curious to see it. It was easy enough to get there: take the Piccadilly line from King's Cross to Piccadilly Circus. Fortnum and Mason's main store was packed with enthusiastic shoppers, but Doug managed to find most requested items, while I rested on a chair. Then we walked along Piccadilly, an impressive upscale street, with lots of taxis and lots of banners celebrating the approaching Jubilee.

London Classics

We ended the rest of the day with a lot of walking around, catching last glimpses of London classics. We'd seen many of them on our earlier 1999 trip, so didn't make an effort to spend a lot of time at them this visit, but it was nice, and very London-y to see them again.

We walked through Green Park, with its rent-a-deck-chairs, to the Buckingham Palace area, prepping for the upcoming Jubilee. Then we cut through St. James Park to get to Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, and the Houses of Parliament. Doug was disappointed that Big Ben isn't chiming right now (he grew up with a living room clock that chimed like Big Ben), but I was excited because Big Ben was more sparkly than I'd remembered. We found statues of the Burghers of Calais, by Rodin—the same statues that are at the front of Stanford's quad (Rodin's sculptures often had more than one casting made of them). It's appropriate to have them near UK's seat of government, as the Burgers were an example of courageous leadership, willing to sacrifice themselves for their city (you can read their story here).

Lastly, we walked along the Thames, with a good view of the London Eye, before reaching the Embarkment Station area. We had dinner at a yummy little ramen shop there, before heading home to Earl's Court. Seeing the London classics was a fitting way to end our stay in London.

Next Post

It's hard to believe it's our last night in London. Tomorrow we do our COVID testing and then hopefully fly home. I'm ready to go home, but also sad that the trip is ending. Tonight at dinner, we already started talking about where we would go and what we would want to see, on a return trip.

Happened upon a Festival of Fashion put on by
the University of the Arts, London. I'm drawn
to the one on the right, what do you think?

LONDON 4B: Sky Garden, Zari, British Museum

View from Sky Garden, looking towards the Tower Bridge

Fr 27 May 

This post for Friday 27 May was written on that day, but is being posted now after adding photos. We spent Friday first in the central city section, north of the Thames, and then in the Bloomsbury area, more towards the west. I feel like I'm just starting to understand the areas of London.

Orange markers were Thursday's South Bank visits,
Yellow on far right is Sky Garden, far left is
Zari Galley and 2nd left is British Museum.

We started off the day by taking the District line to the Monument stop, where indeed there is a gigantic monument! It looks like a normal monument enlarged several times, so much so that you can actually go in it and up to the top (though we didn't). It's a monument to the Great Fire of London in 1666, built not long after, in the 1670's. We didn't go up the monument in part because we knew we were already going somewhere with views. Instead we had a quick breakfast in the nearby historic Leadenhall Market area.

Sky Garden

Sky Garden building

Then we walked on to our main goal, the Sky Garden, which Allison had recommended to us. It's a large viewing area atop a 38-story building, opened in 2015. The views are indeed spectacular, and they were especially nice on Friday, as we lucked out with a sunny, clear day. Amazingly, the Sky Garden is free, but you do need to book a ticket, and Doug had booked ours when Allison first recommended it (~3 weeks ago). Because we had pre-booked tickets, we thought entry would be fast, but in the end it did take some time to get in. It took time partly because they were taking walk-ins as well, but also because you go through a simple security process, where bags are scanned and you walk through a metal detector.

At the top, the views are great, especially on the south side, facing the Thames River. We could see the Globe (very tiny) and the Tate, which we visited yesterday! 

Globe is circled, Tate has a square

The space itself is also impressive, being three stories high, and having lots of plants, as suggested by its Sky Garden name. There's a cafe and a restaurant, and at one point Doug got us some avocado/courgette (zucchini) cake, and we munched in a quiet corner before going on our way. 

Zari Gallery

Next, we took the Central line from Bank to Tottenham Court Road. We noticed that this Tube line seemed older than the District line; there could be more of a gap to "mind" when you boarded or got off the trains. On the plus side, when we got to the Tottenham Court Road stop, the station had more interesting decor than most.

Coming out on Tottenham Court Road, we could feel that the vibe seemed a little different than in other parts of the city we'd been in. It seemed younger, hipper. We tracked down the Gallery, which had an exhibition called "The Art of the Athlete," featuring works where the artist is also an athlete. We were interested because our bootcamp leader, a former track star and current coach, had a couple works being displayed there. It was a small but very pleasant gallery, with the exhibition taking up space on both the first and second floors. Some athletes' work had to do with sport and athletes, but others enjoyed art as a way to explore other realms.

The British Museum

In general, we weren't going to revisit places we saw 23 years ago (Buckingham Palace, Tower of London, Westminster Abbey, etc.)—not because we didn't like them, but just to give us time for discovering other aspects of London we wanted to see, such as Kew Gardens and the Globe. For that reason, we might have skipped the British Museum, but it wasn't far from Zari Gallery, and it's free, so...

The British Museum has so. much. stuff! And it has very large pieces, not just little artifacts in cases. Although some of the larger items are casts of the originals, many are actual original pieces—like the friezes from the Parthenon are the actual stonework from there. We focused on the Roman period and medieval times; both of which have been relevant to other parts of our trip. To give a very small sampling, below are photos of Doug getting a snack in the now enclosed Great Court (opened in 2000), some Roman busts, a famous medieval ivory chess set (~1150-1175AD), a ~600AD Anglo-Saxon helmet as it is now and a version of what it is believed to have looked like, and a guide explaining the Rosetta Stone (using a copy so he can touch it). The real one is in the museum, in a case. 

It's hard not to be captivated by the British Museum... the collections are so strong, and often dramatic—in terms of large pieces and/or significance. One of the guides we listened to touched upon an ongoing controversy in museum work, and that is: who "owns" pieces of the past? Should Britain still retain many artifacts which came to it in part because of the now gone British Empire? At that same time, those artifacts are clearly being very carefully kept, maintained, and documented, and there's value in being able to have a large assemblage of items in one place. These are tricky questions, and ones the Pitt-Rivers Museum in Oxford was also contending with. In a way, items that belong to long gone civilizations, like the Egyptians and Romans, are really the heritage of all humankind; the question is not so much who "owns" them then, but who gets to be their caretaker? 

Next Post

On Saturday, our last full day in London, we have a couple of missions to accomplish, but otherwise the day is free to wander at will, to catch last tastes of London.

Close-up of medieval chessmen, from 
a postcard I bought at the British Museum

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.