Well, at least the weather was unambiguous this morning - a steady rain, so we brought our umbrellas and wore our boots and were at least properly dressed for the weather.
Rainy day = museum day; therefore, we were going to visit the Museum of London. We caught the nearby Thameslink train (and overheard a few people discussing the giant elephant) :-). The train runs through the King's Cross/St. Pancras station, and we couldn't resist taking a little detour to the train station. As you may (or may not) know, Harry Potter always catches the train to Hogwarts from King's Cross. We didn't see Harry, but we did find Platform 9 3/4, and yes, there are photos of us running into the pillar. :-)
Our stay at Hogwarts wasn't long, I'm afraid. We were immediately expelled (it was Monica's fault). Oh well, back to sightseeing.
The Museum of London basically follows the development of London through the ages. We largely skipped over the prehistoric section as we've seen more than enough dinos and fossils in Drumheller. I was quite interested in the Roman section, because it was the Romans who founded Londinium, and so they have a good number of artifacts (and some portion of the Roman walls are still standing in the city). I love Rome. They kick butt. (Literally and figuratively.)
In the displays of later eras, they had a neat panoramic display of the city during the Great Fire of London, a small replica of the infamous Newgate prison, and a walk-thru Victorian Street (set up much like the WDM's Boomtown). I was very surprised to learn that London's first underground trains were built in about 1865.
Interesting museum, but there were many schoolchildren visiting, so we tried to pace ourselves so that we were always somewhere in between the screaming children group and the surly teenager group. After that, we stopped at the Gateway Grill for lunch - fish and chips and boiled peas. Fish and chips - yea! - boiled peas - nay! Oh well, the English aren't exactly famous for their cooking. And their peas show it.
Monica finishes her food, consults her map, then stares as me with a piercing blank gaze that says "I'm finished - you hurry up". So I wolf down my food, start coughing, and she scolds, "You ate too fast." Thanks, Dr. Monica.
It's stopped raining, which is nice, but alas, we have no London A-Z guide with all the handy maps, so we are trying to use our brains to find St. Pauls. After all - it's big! - how hard can it be? It is big, but it hides very well behind all those business towers. However, we just have to head toward the Thames, and eventually we find it. Monica balks at the £9 to get in, and decides to wait outside on the church steps while I go inside. The church interior is suitably impressive, but what I'm interested in are the domes.
I find my way to the first flight of stairs, a rather wide wood-topped stone stairway that spirals up to the Whispering Gallery, which is on the lowest and largest point of the dome, looking down on the interior of the church. Ha ha - this is easy! I climb it like it's a stairclimber at the gym, scornfully passing the slowpokes, and the huffers and puffers who sit trying to catch their breath. Just when I'm getting tired of circling round and round, I have finally climbed the 259 steps to the Whispering Gallery, and am now 30 metres above the church floor.
The acoustics are supposed to be amazing, so that you and a friend can sit directly opposite each other and easily hear a whispered conversation; hence the name, the Whispering Gallery. However, since Monica chintzed out, I am friendless, and whispering to myself doesn't have the same effect. It just makes people edge away from me nervously.
On to the second flight of stairs! This is more like the many church stairs I climbed in France. It's a steeper, stone spiral, less than half the width of the first flight. No way to pass people on this staircase, but I must have timed it right, for there aren't any people in my way. This flight of stairs takes you to the Stone Gallery, which is a large, wide balcony on the outside of the dome, now about 53 meters up. It's not raining anymore, but there's a cool wind that is refreshing after all that climbing. I walk around, take a few photos, and - feeling invincible - head for the final flight of stairs to take me to the very top.
The last flight are not the friendly stone stairs, but very tight, steep stairs of iron grating. Stairs you can see through, and perched on these iron girders and platforms as you climb up and over the dome. I think it is entirely appropriate to say, "Oh my god" in church. Maybe not usually with that degree of horror, but whatever. My pace has slowed considerably. Don't look down. Don't question how tightly these things are bolted. Ugh. I do not like the iron grating at all.
Near the very very top, everything gets extremely steep and narrow. The last small flight of stairs are cut through a stone tunnel - no handrails, and even I had to duck down, and it was extremely tight. I kind of wondered what would happen if you couldn't fit.
I've now climbed 83 metres to the top level, which is called the Inner Golden Gallery, and it's a very narrow balcony ringed around the top of the dome, giving you a great view of London. Unfortunately, you can't get past anyone, and someone from the Dumass family must have been just standing there, basking in the view, for a very long time, because no one was moving. We'd move in slow fits and starts, and then stand there for about five minutes. Yes, it's a nice view, but still...
No doubt due to our speed-impaired friends, the descent was very congested. I still didn't care for the iron spiral staircases, and maybe liked them even a little bit less when they were fully loaded with people, and I had to look down. Stone spirals were slow, but when I got back to the wide wooden staircase, I was back to passing people. Whee! Only thing is, you can get a bit dizzy after a while and misjudge a step. Imagine tripping over your feet and tumbling down, your alarmed cry echoing through the entire Cathedral. Fun!
Back on the main floor, I decided to quickly visit the crypt before rejoining Monica. It's painted white and brightly lit, so not very crypt-like. Wellington has a giant marble tomb. I'll have to tell Monica - she'll be pleased (she thinks Wellington gets short shrift compared to Nelson). I take a few more steps. Oops - Monica will NOT be pleased: there's Nelson's tomb, much more elaborate, and with beautiful ambient lighting.
There's lots of other things in the crypt, but I didn't want to leave Monica for too long, so didn't stay.
Our next stop was the Tate Britain, which was way far away, but the Tate Modern was just across the river where you can catch a Tate-to-Tate boat. So we crossed the Thames via the Millenium Bridge, which is a pedestrian only bridge that (due to an architectural goof of some kind) was very wobbly when they first opened it. They had to shut it down for months to make repairs, and someone has scrawled "Wobbly Bridge" on the railing.
At £4.30 for two people, the boat was a good deal. We went whizzing down the middle of the Thames, getting a great view of the London Eye and the Houses of Parliament. When it docked, we could see the MI5 building on the other side of the river (they probably saw us too!).
The Tate Britain has a great collection of Pre-Raphaelite paintings (which is what I like). There were several paintings by Burne-Jones, Waterhouse, Millais, Holman Hunt, and Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Wow! In other wings, there were some very old paintings of the Tudor monarchs, elaborate landscapes, and a modern wing (which I didn't bother with). Monica and I split up for a while, and I eventually wandered back to the Pre-Raphaelites. What surprised me was the scale of some of the paintings - they were much larger than I'd expected, and in huge elaborate frames.
My favourites were Burne-Jones' "King Cophetua and the Beggar Maid" (from the gift shop, I could purchase a special engraving of this for only £99. I didn't.), and Rossetti's "St. Catherine" (I'd seen prints of it before, but the colour in the original is so amazingly vivid) and "Prosperine".
After that, we caught the tube at Pimlico and headed home. Today, my tube pass officially expires (it unofficially expired a few days ago, and would not work at any station); I am happy to put it out of its misery, and will be buying day passes for the remainder of the week.
Neil was cooking supper for us that evening - I think they found us exceedingly different to cook for. Monica's a vegetarian; I'm not. Monica likes hot spicy food; I'll only eat moderately spicy. Monica's allergic to nuts and apples; I'm not. What difficult guests! However, we all managed to get fed.
:-)
Rainy day = museum day; therefore, we were going to visit the Museum of London. We caught the nearby Thameslink train (and overheard a few people discussing the giant elephant) :-). The train runs through the King's Cross/St. Pancras station, and we couldn't resist taking a little detour to the train station. As you may (or may not) know, Harry Potter always catches the train to Hogwarts from King's Cross. We didn't see Harry, but we did find Platform 9 3/4, and yes, there are photos of us running into the pillar. :-)
Our stay at Hogwarts wasn't long, I'm afraid. We were immediately expelled (it was Monica's fault). Oh well, back to sightseeing.
The Museum of London basically follows the development of London through the ages. We largely skipped over the prehistoric section as we've seen more than enough dinos and fossils in Drumheller. I was quite interested in the Roman section, because it was the Romans who founded Londinium, and so they have a good number of artifacts (and some portion of the Roman walls are still standing in the city). I love Rome. They kick butt. (Literally and figuratively.)
In the displays of later eras, they had a neat panoramic display of the city during the Great Fire of London, a small replica of the infamous Newgate prison, and a walk-thru Victorian Street (set up much like the WDM's Boomtown). I was very surprised to learn that London's first underground trains were built in about 1865.
Interesting museum, but there were many schoolchildren visiting, so we tried to pace ourselves so that we were always somewhere in between the screaming children group and the surly teenager group. After that, we stopped at the Gateway Grill for lunch - fish and chips and boiled peas. Fish and chips - yea! - boiled peas - nay! Oh well, the English aren't exactly famous for their cooking. And their peas show it.
Monica finishes her food, consults her map, then stares as me with a piercing blank gaze that says "I'm finished - you hurry up". So I wolf down my food, start coughing, and she scolds, "You ate too fast." Thanks, Dr. Monica.
It's stopped raining, which is nice, but alas, we have no London A-Z guide with all the handy maps, so we are trying to use our brains to find St. Pauls. After all - it's big! - how hard can it be? It is big, but it hides very well behind all those business towers. However, we just have to head toward the Thames, and eventually we find it. Monica balks at the £9 to get in, and decides to wait outside on the church steps while I go inside. The church interior is suitably impressive, but what I'm interested in are the domes.
I find my way to the first flight of stairs, a rather wide wood-topped stone stairway that spirals up to the Whispering Gallery, which is on the lowest and largest point of the dome, looking down on the interior of the church. Ha ha - this is easy! I climb it like it's a stairclimber at the gym, scornfully passing the slowpokes, and the huffers and puffers who sit trying to catch their breath. Just when I'm getting tired of circling round and round, I have finally climbed the 259 steps to the Whispering Gallery, and am now 30 metres above the church floor.
The acoustics are supposed to be amazing, so that you and a friend can sit directly opposite each other and easily hear a whispered conversation; hence the name, the Whispering Gallery. However, since Monica chintzed out, I am friendless, and whispering to myself doesn't have the same effect. It just makes people edge away from me nervously.
On to the second flight of stairs! This is more like the many church stairs I climbed in France. It's a steeper, stone spiral, less than half the width of the first flight. No way to pass people on this staircase, but I must have timed it right, for there aren't any people in my way. This flight of stairs takes you to the Stone Gallery, which is a large, wide balcony on the outside of the dome, now about 53 meters up. It's not raining anymore, but there's a cool wind that is refreshing after all that climbing. I walk around, take a few photos, and - feeling invincible - head for the final flight of stairs to take me to the very top.
The last flight are not the friendly stone stairs, but very tight, steep stairs of iron grating. Stairs you can see through, and perched on these iron girders and platforms as you climb up and over the dome. I think it is entirely appropriate to say, "Oh my god" in church. Maybe not usually with that degree of horror, but whatever. My pace has slowed considerably. Don't look down. Don't question how tightly these things are bolted. Ugh. I do not like the iron grating at all.
Near the very very top, everything gets extremely steep and narrow. The last small flight of stairs are cut through a stone tunnel - no handrails, and even I had to duck down, and it was extremely tight. I kind of wondered what would happen if you couldn't fit.
I've now climbed 83 metres to the top level, which is called the Inner Golden Gallery, and it's a very narrow balcony ringed around the top of the dome, giving you a great view of London. Unfortunately, you can't get past anyone, and someone from the Dumass family must have been just standing there, basking in the view, for a very long time, because no one was moving. We'd move in slow fits and starts, and then stand there for about five minutes. Yes, it's a nice view, but still...
No doubt due to our speed-impaired friends, the descent was very congested. I still didn't care for the iron spiral staircases, and maybe liked them even a little bit less when they were fully loaded with people, and I had to look down. Stone spirals were slow, but when I got back to the wide wooden staircase, I was back to passing people. Whee! Only thing is, you can get a bit dizzy after a while and misjudge a step. Imagine tripping over your feet and tumbling down, your alarmed cry echoing through the entire Cathedral. Fun!
Back on the main floor, I decided to quickly visit the crypt before rejoining Monica. It's painted white and brightly lit, so not very crypt-like. Wellington has a giant marble tomb. I'll have to tell Monica - she'll be pleased (she thinks Wellington gets short shrift compared to Nelson). I take a few more steps. Oops - Monica will NOT be pleased: there's Nelson's tomb, much more elaborate, and with beautiful ambient lighting.
There's lots of other things in the crypt, but I didn't want to leave Monica for too long, so didn't stay.
Our next stop was the Tate Britain, which was way far away, but the Tate Modern was just across the river where you can catch a Tate-to-Tate boat. So we crossed the Thames via the Millenium Bridge, which is a pedestrian only bridge that (due to an architectural goof of some kind) was very wobbly when they first opened it. They had to shut it down for months to make repairs, and someone has scrawled "Wobbly Bridge" on the railing.
At £4.30 for two people, the boat was a good deal. We went whizzing down the middle of the Thames, getting a great view of the London Eye and the Houses of Parliament. When it docked, we could see the MI5 building on the other side of the river (they probably saw us too!).
The Tate Britain has a great collection of Pre-Raphaelite paintings (which is what I like). There were several paintings by Burne-Jones, Waterhouse, Millais, Holman Hunt, and Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Wow! In other wings, there were some very old paintings of the Tudor monarchs, elaborate landscapes, and a modern wing (which I didn't bother with). Monica and I split up for a while, and I eventually wandered back to the Pre-Raphaelites. What surprised me was the scale of some of the paintings - they were much larger than I'd expected, and in huge elaborate frames.
My favourites were Burne-Jones' "King Cophetua and the Beggar Maid" (from the gift shop, I could purchase a special engraving of this for only £99. I didn't.), and Rossetti's "St. Catherine" (I'd seen prints of it before, but the colour in the original is so amazingly vivid) and "Prosperine".
After that, we caught the tube at Pimlico and headed home. Today, my tube pass officially expires (it unofficially expired a few days ago, and would not work at any station); I am happy to put it out of its misery, and will be buying day passes for the remainder of the week.
Neil was cooking supper for us that evening - I think they found us exceedingly different to cook for. Monica's a vegetarian; I'm not. Monica likes hot spicy food; I'll only eat moderately spicy. Monica's allergic to nuts and apples; I'm not. What difficult guests! However, we all managed to get fed.
:-)
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