With nice weather forecast for the day, we caught the tube to Waterloo station, switched to the rail lines and bought tickets to Hampton Court. Tickets were surprisingly cheap at £4.10 (at least, in comparison to our tickets to Bath), and we were on our way at 10:36 in the morning.
I think I was expecting a speedy train, like the one we took to Bath, but this was a slow pokey little train. Clunk-clunkety-clunk. I swear I saw some cyclists passing us. However, it ambled along at a leisurely pace, and half-an-hour later we were at Hampton Court, which was at one time Cardinal Wolsey's home. Although Cardinal Wolsey fell out of favour with Henry VIII, his home did not, and Henry decided to adopt it. Prince of a guy, that Henry. Or King, I guess. Whatever. I just think of him as "Fat Henry".
Since we picked up a 2-for-1 admission voucher at the train station (can be used at various attractions), Monica and I only had to pay £6 each for admission. I pointed out to Monica that £6 = one day at Hampton Court Palace or fifteen minutes at the "Jane Austen Hated Bath Museum" - Monica is still bitter about that.
Oh no. More schoolchildren. Aren't the little brats EVER in class? Apparently not.
We decide to skip the official tours in favour of wandering. Our first stop is Fat Henry's State Apartments. The notes point out that Henry was the first royal owner, but omit the "after knocking off Wolsey" part. Henry apparently liked to decorate with extensive collections of antlers and stuffed animal heads. Yuck.
The Tudor Kitchens were fascinating, but it was slightly distracting with the children running around and the teacher yelling, "Write down FIVE things that you wouldn't see in your own kitchen." You'd think it would be easy. There are animals hanging from hooks, tree stumps used as cutting boards, and giant fireplaces... and yet, still the kids don't seem to get it. "What do you mean?" "Things that you WOULDN'T see." Monica and I move on.
The Queen's State Apartments (Queen Mary II) had some spectacularly ugly paintings on the ceilings. The early 1700s was not a good time for fashion, or art. The ceiling was colourfully painted with many fat ugly cherubs, and all sorts of roly-poly people floating around on clouds, all with big curly hairdos. Aargh. Have you people no taste?! They probably thought they were improving the palace. Less is more. Less!
Now the Georgian Rooms, on the other hand, were relatively restrained. White wood panelling, with some gold trim. We were much happier with these rooms. (I'm sure palace staff are, right now, affixing "Monica & Catherine's Seal of Approval" to that wing. Versus the "No Go Zone" for the Queen's apartments.)
Our favourite rooms were the Wolsey rooms, probably the oldest, unmodified areas of the palace. A tour guide was chatting with us, and since it wasn't too busy at the moment (all the kids must have still been downstairs), he showed us a hidden doorway. It was right next to a real doorway, but the real doorway led down a different parallel hallway. Cool!
Although we liked Wolsey's Closet (which just means a small room), he shuddered and said he didn't like it, and then told us how this heavy iron fireplate in the fireplace (which is heavy enough that it needs two people to lift it) had suddenly been found across the room once when no one was around. Ghosts... servant ghosts, I'm guessing, cause who else would be moving it around?
There was a hallway that is supposedly haunted by Catherine Howard. In any case, I didn't see any ghosts; just two women dressed in period costume. I should have attacked them, shouting, "Begone, ghosts! Begone!" Darn it. I always think of these things too late.
Monica set off an alarm in one of the rooms by pointing at a table, and stretching her arm far enough that the motion detector picked it up. That was ear-piercing, let me tell you. After that, she and I decided to 'begone' outside.
The gardens around the Palace are very beautiful. There's "The Privy Garden", the King's private garden. It's very formally laid out, set up as it was in 1702. The "Knot Garden" is set up the way it might have been in the 16th century. The "Fountain Garden" has a long tree-lined avenue with - you guessed it! - fountains. There are also several ponds and waterways with ducks and swans. "The Wilderness" (originally an orchard in the 16th century) is a park of trees and wildflowers, and one small corner of it has one of those hedge mazes. Monica and I found our way to the centre, with the help of a little girl who was bouncing up and down with excitement to show us the way. However, it's now a small maze, so I expect everyone gets there eventually - at one time, it took up most of the "Wilderness", and back then I'd expect you could die of starvation if you take a wrong turn.
At some time after 3 o'clock, we headed back to the train station, and were back at Waterloo Station by 4 p.m. Then we were at a bit of a loss as to what to do next. With tickets to the Globe in the evening, we'd agreed to meet Geraldine for supper at 6, so we didn't want to wander too far away. I wanted to go to the London Aquarium; Monica wanted to go to the Salvador Dali Experience. While a Dali-guy looked on (both the Dali and Aquarium are right next to each other), we had to rock-paper-scissors to resolve this impasse. I used good old reliable rock - Monica used her sneaky paper. Doh! The Dali-guy must have evil-eyed me.
When we went inside, we found out that the Picasso wing was closed for a private function. Seeing as I regularly walk by Picassos, oblivious to their existence, this was not a problem for me. Monica decided she could live without Picasso, so we went in anyway. Yay, another 2-for-1 admission!
The opening hallway was neat, all black except for some pictures and quotations, and dimly lit with black-light, with atmospheric vocals "ahhh-aaahhh"-ing in the background. As for the gallery, I prefer his statues to his drawings, which I generally do not like. Some of the statues were quite striking. Some of them were stupid. I found the write-ups next to the artwork often gave an explanation of the "meaning" of the work, which I think was invented after the artwork. Overall, I found a lot of it pretentious, and a bit overblown - kind of like his art.
Monica was disappointed. Because it said "Salvadore Dali Experience", she'd thought that there'd be something a little more interactive. Nope! You just get to experience his art. As I said, I did like some of the statues. And maybe I should just leave it at that! :-) Hey, at least it was cheap!
We started walking along the Thames toward the Globe Theatre. There are all sorts of street performers along the river walk. People painted all in silver and dressed in silver clothing, posing as statues. People in gold; one man in armor made from recycled bottles. An entirely blue main (clothes, skin, hair) playing music, and a hippie doing chalk art on the sidewalk. All of them have little coin collection plates for passerbys, and will often do "something" if you give them a coin.
Two girls were posing next to a golden "statue" (which you're not supposed to do if you haven't given him some coins). Another man threw a coin into the bowl, and the golden man starts to move. He does a little bow and a wave, then grabs the two girls by the back of their shirts and hauls them up so that everyone can take pictures of them dangling. Now that was priceless.
Several teenage boys come up behind one of the silver statue-men and act as if they're going to push him off his pedestal. The hippie guy starts bellowing, "I can tolerate working here for almost no money, but what I cannot tolerate is YOUR BELLIGERANCE!" The boys kind of tried to laugh it off, but they still beat a hasty retreat, and the hippie was still hollering after them. Good for him!
We had to keep walking for a while to meet Geraldine at "TAS Pide", a turkish restaurant that bills itself as 'Anatolia's Authenic Eating Experience'. We got there just after 6 p.m., and had supper. As it is just around the corner from the Globe, once we finished eating, we just crossed the street to see Coriolanus at 7:30.
Monica and I rented seat cushions, since there are just wooden benches in the theatre. Tickets started at £5 for groundlings (who stand in the centre), and £14 for our first-level seats. Nice thing about our seats is that we were allowed to go stand on the ground if we wanted, then come and sit back down when we got tired of it. The theatre is very impressive. It's not the original Globe theatre, of course, but they did make a great effort to replicate the original. It is an open-roof circular theatre, with three balcony levels, and a large central area for people to stand. At one time, I think they even let people view from the roof, but they obviously don't do that now that we have safety regulations.
I knew nothing about Coriolanus, except that it takes place in ancient Rome (yay, Rome!). Not surprisingly, the actors were all very good. Basically, Coriolanus is a brave and bloody Roman warrior (at one point, he flicks 'gore' off his sword into the crowd). The fickle people of Rome, egged on by the nobility, turn on him and have him banished. Coriolanus joins the enemy to lay waste to Rome. At the last moment, his mother, and his wife and son, appeal to him to change his mind. And he does, and is reconciled to his family and Rome. (Is that a happy ending? No, it's not done.) The enemy, of course, is not so happy. So we he shows up with the peace treaty, they stab him, and rip out his heart. The end.
With impeccable timing, Monica quickly stepped out for a bathroom break when Coriolanus was delivering the peace treaty. By the time she'd returned, Coriolanus had already fallen into the audience, and the bad guy was standing there waving his heart around. "What did I miss?" Um...
It was already after 11, and I wanted to get back to the tube before my one-day pass expired at midnight, so once they play finished, we headed back along the Thames. I'd been given instructions to go to Blackfriars bridge, then turn left to find the tube station, but Monica saw a direction sign and wanted to follow that. We were wandering around strange empty streets late at night. Eventually, we did find the Southwark tube station (although not without having to ask for directions at a hotel). Made it back to West Hampstead before midnight. Whew! (My tube pass turns into a pumpkin at midnight.)
Neil & Geraldine are off to a 4-day vacation in Portugal starting tomorrow, so Monica and I will have the place to ourselves (not that we spend much time there - too busy running around).
:-)
I think I was expecting a speedy train, like the one we took to Bath, but this was a slow pokey little train. Clunk-clunkety-clunk. I swear I saw some cyclists passing us. However, it ambled along at a leisurely pace, and half-an-hour later we were at Hampton Court, which was at one time Cardinal Wolsey's home. Although Cardinal Wolsey fell out of favour with Henry VIII, his home did not, and Henry decided to adopt it. Prince of a guy, that Henry. Or King, I guess. Whatever. I just think of him as "Fat Henry".
Since we picked up a 2-for-1 admission voucher at the train station (can be used at various attractions), Monica and I only had to pay £6 each for admission. I pointed out to Monica that £6 = one day at Hampton Court Palace or fifteen minutes at the "Jane Austen Hated Bath Museum" - Monica is still bitter about that.
Oh no. More schoolchildren. Aren't the little brats EVER in class? Apparently not.
We decide to skip the official tours in favour of wandering. Our first stop is Fat Henry's State Apartments. The notes point out that Henry was the first royal owner, but omit the "after knocking off Wolsey" part. Henry apparently liked to decorate with extensive collections of antlers and stuffed animal heads. Yuck.
The Tudor Kitchens were fascinating, but it was slightly distracting with the children running around and the teacher yelling, "Write down FIVE things that you wouldn't see in your own kitchen." You'd think it would be easy. There are animals hanging from hooks, tree stumps used as cutting boards, and giant fireplaces... and yet, still the kids don't seem to get it. "What do you mean?" "Things that you WOULDN'T see." Monica and I move on.
The Queen's State Apartments (Queen Mary II) had some spectacularly ugly paintings on the ceilings. The early 1700s was not a good time for fashion, or art. The ceiling was colourfully painted with many fat ugly cherubs, and all sorts of roly-poly people floating around on clouds, all with big curly hairdos. Aargh. Have you people no taste?! They probably thought they were improving the palace. Less is more. Less!
Now the Georgian Rooms, on the other hand, were relatively restrained. White wood panelling, with some gold trim. We were much happier with these rooms. (I'm sure palace staff are, right now, affixing "Monica & Catherine's Seal of Approval" to that wing. Versus the "No Go Zone" for the Queen's apartments.)
Our favourite rooms were the Wolsey rooms, probably the oldest, unmodified areas of the palace. A tour guide was chatting with us, and since it wasn't too busy at the moment (all the kids must have still been downstairs), he showed us a hidden doorway. It was right next to a real doorway, but the real doorway led down a different parallel hallway. Cool!
Although we liked Wolsey's Closet (which just means a small room), he shuddered and said he didn't like it, and then told us how this heavy iron fireplate in the fireplace (which is heavy enough that it needs two people to lift it) had suddenly been found across the room once when no one was around. Ghosts... servant ghosts, I'm guessing, cause who else would be moving it around?
There was a hallway that is supposedly haunted by Catherine Howard. In any case, I didn't see any ghosts; just two women dressed in period costume. I should have attacked them, shouting, "Begone, ghosts! Begone!" Darn it. I always think of these things too late.
Monica set off an alarm in one of the rooms by pointing at a table, and stretching her arm far enough that the motion detector picked it up. That was ear-piercing, let me tell you. After that, she and I decided to 'begone' outside.
The gardens around the Palace are very beautiful. There's "The Privy Garden", the King's private garden. It's very formally laid out, set up as it was in 1702. The "Knot Garden" is set up the way it might have been in the 16th century. The "Fountain Garden" has a long tree-lined avenue with - you guessed it! - fountains. There are also several ponds and waterways with ducks and swans. "The Wilderness" (originally an orchard in the 16th century) is a park of trees and wildflowers, and one small corner of it has one of those hedge mazes. Monica and I found our way to the centre, with the help of a little girl who was bouncing up and down with excitement to show us the way. However, it's now a small maze, so I expect everyone gets there eventually - at one time, it took up most of the "Wilderness", and back then I'd expect you could die of starvation if you take a wrong turn.
At some time after 3 o'clock, we headed back to the train station, and were back at Waterloo Station by 4 p.m. Then we were at a bit of a loss as to what to do next. With tickets to the Globe in the evening, we'd agreed to meet Geraldine for supper at 6, so we didn't want to wander too far away. I wanted to go to the London Aquarium; Monica wanted to go to the Salvador Dali Experience. While a Dali-guy looked on (both the Dali and Aquarium are right next to each other), we had to rock-paper-scissors to resolve this impasse. I used good old reliable rock - Monica used her sneaky paper. Doh! The Dali-guy must have evil-eyed me.
When we went inside, we found out that the Picasso wing was closed for a private function. Seeing as I regularly walk by Picassos, oblivious to their existence, this was not a problem for me. Monica decided she could live without Picasso, so we went in anyway. Yay, another 2-for-1 admission!
The opening hallway was neat, all black except for some pictures and quotations, and dimly lit with black-light, with atmospheric vocals "ahhh-aaahhh"-ing in the background. As for the gallery, I prefer his statues to his drawings, which I generally do not like. Some of the statues were quite striking. Some of them were stupid. I found the write-ups next to the artwork often gave an explanation of the "meaning" of the work, which I think was invented after the artwork. Overall, I found a lot of it pretentious, and a bit overblown - kind of like his art.
Monica was disappointed. Because it said "Salvadore Dali Experience", she'd thought that there'd be something a little more interactive. Nope! You just get to experience his art. As I said, I did like some of the statues. And maybe I should just leave it at that! :-) Hey, at least it was cheap!
We started walking along the Thames toward the Globe Theatre. There are all sorts of street performers along the river walk. People painted all in silver and dressed in silver clothing, posing as statues. People in gold; one man in armor made from recycled bottles. An entirely blue main (clothes, skin, hair) playing music, and a hippie doing chalk art on the sidewalk. All of them have little coin collection plates for passerbys, and will often do "something" if you give them a coin.
Two girls were posing next to a golden "statue" (which you're not supposed to do if you haven't given him some coins). Another man threw a coin into the bowl, and the golden man starts to move. He does a little bow and a wave, then grabs the two girls by the back of their shirts and hauls them up so that everyone can take pictures of them dangling. Now that was priceless.
Several teenage boys come up behind one of the silver statue-men and act as if they're going to push him off his pedestal. The hippie guy starts bellowing, "I can tolerate working here for almost no money, but what I cannot tolerate is YOUR BELLIGERANCE!" The boys kind of tried to laugh it off, but they still beat a hasty retreat, and the hippie was still hollering after them. Good for him!
We had to keep walking for a while to meet Geraldine at "TAS Pide", a turkish restaurant that bills itself as 'Anatolia's Authenic Eating Experience'. We got there just after 6 p.m., and had supper. As it is just around the corner from the Globe, once we finished eating, we just crossed the street to see Coriolanus at 7:30.
Monica and I rented seat cushions, since there are just wooden benches in the theatre. Tickets started at £5 for groundlings (who stand in the centre), and £14 for our first-level seats. Nice thing about our seats is that we were allowed to go stand on the ground if we wanted, then come and sit back down when we got tired of it. The theatre is very impressive. It's not the original Globe theatre, of course, but they did make a great effort to replicate the original. It is an open-roof circular theatre, with three balcony levels, and a large central area for people to stand. At one time, I think they even let people view from the roof, but they obviously don't do that now that we have safety regulations.
I knew nothing about Coriolanus, except that it takes place in ancient Rome (yay, Rome!). Not surprisingly, the actors were all very good. Basically, Coriolanus is a brave and bloody Roman warrior (at one point, he flicks 'gore' off his sword into the crowd). The fickle people of Rome, egged on by the nobility, turn on him and have him banished. Coriolanus joins the enemy to lay waste to Rome. At the last moment, his mother, and his wife and son, appeal to him to change his mind. And he does, and is reconciled to his family and Rome. (Is that a happy ending? No, it's not done.) The enemy, of course, is not so happy. So we he shows up with the peace treaty, they stab him, and rip out his heart. The end.
With impeccable timing, Monica quickly stepped out for a bathroom break when Coriolanus was delivering the peace treaty. By the time she'd returned, Coriolanus had already fallen into the audience, and the bad guy was standing there waving his heart around. "What did I miss?" Um...
It was already after 11, and I wanted to get back to the tube before my one-day pass expired at midnight, so once they play finished, we headed back along the Thames. I'd been given instructions to go to Blackfriars bridge, then turn left to find the tube station, but Monica saw a direction sign and wanted to follow that. We were wandering around strange empty streets late at night. Eventually, we did find the Southwark tube station (although not without having to ask for directions at a hotel). Made it back to West Hampstead before midnight. Whew! (My tube pass turns into a pumpkin at midnight.)
Neil & Geraldine are off to a 4-day vacation in Portugal starting tomorrow, so Monica and I will have the place to ourselves (not that we spend much time there - too busy running around).
:-)
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