Oh well, in that case,
Wednesday and Thursday, May 12 and 13
Dear Friends,
When I got back to the hotel last night, the computer wireless network was down. I am happy to see we are back to normal. Yesterday, I went to the National Galley in the morning. I started at the Picasso pictures and moved back in time two hours, when I stopped for lunch.
I went to the top of the National Portrait Gallery to their café with a view of the city. I went up to the receptionist and requested a seat for one. She looked at me a moment and then went into a serious study of her seating plan. I glanced around and noticed quite a number of empty seats. Finally, she said she did have a table available for me BUT only for 45 minutes and I would be unable to order more than 1 entrée. No problem. I ordered a salad with Black Truffle Potatoes, Artichoke Hearts and Mushrooms, along with a glass of wine. The potatoes are deep dark purple in color and very tasty. They have nothing to do with truffles. I was able to vacate the table within 45 minutes and then proceeded to the National Portrait Gallery. I started with the Tudors and moved forward in time. By the time I got to the Victorians, my attention was going, so I left and went to a pub to get out my map and get oriented.
The Pub was The Sherlock Holmes pub. I was too tired to go upstairs and look at their recreation of Sherlock Holmes study, although that does sound like great fun. I met a British couple and we had quite a talk about their adventures traveling in the United States. They had just returned from a trip to Hawaii and Alaska. Not too impressed by the beach in Oahu, but Alaska thrilled them. They also really liked Savannah and were laughing about the fact that we are still fighting The Civil War. They saw a lot of rebel flags. Their favorite place was Washington, D.C., which is also one of my very favorite places and for the very same reasons. Washington D.C. is such a great city if you like to walk from place to place and it has a great many historic and artistic places to go.
I finally located where I needed to catch the bus. I got off the bus a little early and walked The Mall, which is a very wide road between a traffic circle and Buckingham Palace. It probably is the main parade ground for royal events. The crowds could be 20 deep on each side of the street for about a mile or more. I arrived at the Queens Gallery and was able to complete the viewing of the exhibit After leaving the exhibit, I went home and slept soundly.
This morning, I arose early and was off to the Tower of London. A young man walked with me from the bus to the opening of the exhibit. He had just come back from Princeton and liked it a great deal. Now, he says, he knows why they call New Jersey the Garden State. The only other time he has been to the U.S. was winter in Minnesota.
I arrived just as the exhibit was opening and went straight to the Crown Jewels and then selected the other four mini tours in the order I thought would be the most popular as to get through them before the crowds. This worked out quite well. Vaughan, my father’s last name, being a Norman spelling of the name, makes me especially interest in William the Conqueror. It was thrilling to be in the very building, the White Tower, that William the Conqueror built first thing upon arriving in England. And a very good choice of location. No need to rebuild the wheel, they say. He chose to locate the castle just inside the lower west corner of the old Roman wall and fortifications. After walking up and down the steep, narrow, winding stairs of the castle, I can readily see why the Norman ladies would take up needlework as their raison d’etre. The guys are busy: fighting , jousting, riding around on huge horses, dressed in battle armor, brandishing ten foot long lances. They can have it. The White Tower is filled with armor and includes the armor of Henry VIII and his son.
It was very moving to be in the tower room where Lady Jane Grey stood looking out the only window and witnessing her husband’s beheading. She was also beheaded. I discovered how little I know about the early English kings and plan to do some reading upon returning to Berkeley.
Leaving the Tower, I took the bus to the Victoria and Albert Museum across town and went on a tour of the top hits of the museum and then took in the Grace Kelley exhibit. So glamorous. The top hits tour included this gigantic bed that an inn used to sleep many people at the same time. It became a well known item in the 1600s and has been an attraction ever since. With time to spare, I took in an exhibit of Walpole. He re-popularized the Gothic form of architecture and then invented the Gothic form of literature. Definitely have to learn more about this guy. Still haven’t made it up to the third floor of the V&A where the fabric samples are.
Friday, May 14th
Dear Friends,
There is a statue of Abraham Lincoln in the very square that Churchill is memorialized. There is also a statue of George Washington in a major square. And a memorial on a hill meadow just above Gannymeade to John F. Kennedy in recognition of his love of freedom under law. There is another memorial at Gannymeade in recognition of the American Bar Association. One of the copies of the Magna Carta signed at Gannymeade by King John is in the British Library and I hope to go there tomorrow.
Today I spent the morning back at the National Gallery and saw a lot of art from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. The coffee bar at the National Gallery sports tables set up with large Hewlett Packard touch screen computers that access a data base that includes the entire collections of art in the gallery. You can pull up art by time period, theme, artist, or the best hits. You can select particular items for your visit. When you have finished your selections, a personal tour can be printed out for you so you will be sure to see what you are interested in. Very cool. And coffee and treats too.
In the afternoon, I took a bus tour of Windsor. We had a bit of a to do at the tourist pick up office. When the guide arrived, she was dismayed to find about twice as many of us there as would fit in the mini-bus. She spent about ½ an hour trying to sort out the mess and finally landed on the solution that she would take the first ones that got a seat. So we charged the bus. One adamant man sat in the guide’s seat. The driver informed him that the bus wouldn’t go without the guide being in that seat. The man assured the driver that the bus would not go if he and his party weren’t on it. The other three people with him were so embarrassed that they got off the bus. He refused to move. Finally, a lady got off the bus and everything sorted itself out for the rest of us. Then, on the way back, we learn that we were not going to be left off at the spot where we were picked up and the guide spent quite a lot of the trip back identifying how each of us would take private transportation to return to our hotels. The bus driver explained that the tour company is owned by people from India who can’t speak English very well. Of course, it doesn’t help that the bus driver and the guide speak English with a thick Cockney accent that is hard to understand. The guide and the buses are subcontracted as needed. When the bus driver tried to explain to the tour company that he could get a larger bus, he couldn’t make himself understood. All he heard over the phone was “Oh my goodness. Overbooked. Oh my goodness.
Windsor is a spectacular place. The Queen was in and a lot of folks were arriving for tea. This weekend is a special horse-related event that she likes to attend. The part of the castle that she uses was pointed out to us on the outside. Queen Elizabeth loved to have President Reagon stay at Windsor so they could go riding over the extensive private estate there.
The visitor does get to visit the parts of the castle that are used for formal events. The art at Windsor was incomparable to any art museum I have seen. Every object and picture was remarkably beautiful -- an entire room filled with Holbein pictures, for example. I saw my favorite paintings of the Tudors (from history books I’ve read). A couple of the rooms were decorated in the baroque style familiar to me from the Medici Palace in Florence with outlandish decorated ceilings and men dressed in pink. One was a banquet room and the ceilings and walls were decorated with all sorts of animals -- from turkeys to lobsters. There is a room filled with weapons dedicated to the guardians of England and busts of the heroes. The last bust is of Winston Churchill, which is place just to the left of his famous ancestor the Duke of Marlborough, Queen Anne’s most distinguished general.
I am acquiring quite a list of people I need to find out about, including most of the early royalty, and Wellington, Nelson, Walpole. And I want to hear a lot more about Churchill. The Churchill Museum is breathtaking -- very detailed with personal objects and set in the underground bunker area from which he conducted the war during The Blitz.
I wasn’t able to see St. George’s Chapel because it was closed before I left the Windsor Castle. This is where Henry VIII and a lot of the kings and queens are interred. I may try to get out there Monday. This weekend, with the horse crowd at Windsor, would not be good.
The moat is dry and is a lovely landscaped place. The dry moat was built by William The Conqueror. He set up Windsor as a hunting lodge. Later kings developed it into a palace that eventually evolved it into a main royal residence. Prince Charles has a huge organic farm at Windsor, with cattle and sheep grazing. They have poultry and eggs as well as produce. What is not used at Windsor Castle is sold at a cottage on the property and the proceeds go to charity. The lambs were playing on the hillside and running after the mothers.
I am no longer impressed with William and Harry being sent away to Eton when they were in grammar school and high school. For a lot a boys, it may have been away from home to go there. For William and Harry, they could have walked back to the castle if they wanted to visit Mom. Windsor is just up the hill from Eton.
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