Another museum and back to the Heath

After our trip to Earls Colne, we got back to London quickly enough, courtesy of National Rail, that we had time left for a new museum: the Museum of London. It's a very nice museum that's only partly open right now (they're adding on a big wing that won't be ready until after I'm gone, unfortunately). But a small museum is what our schedule called for and the price was right (that's right, another free attraction).

The picture here is of a funky sculpture outside the museum. Which leads me to an observation that it's in a very interesting part of the city that I hadn't seen at all before. This place has so many different neighborhoods that are all fascinating; I'm sure being here a year, and going out every day to a different post code, you'd still never see them all.

Here is another interesting item about a block from the museum, a section of an ancient wall that was built around the original city. (The museum's address is London Wall, which is the street, I presume, that follows the old wall's contours.)


But as to the museum's exhibits, we were lucky enough to arrive just in time for an enthusiastic guide through the London Fire (1666) exhibit, which was very informative and entertaining. I also enjoyed seeing the exhibits which illustrate London's growth over the ages. Plus there was a lot of Roman stuff that reinforced what we'd learned at Bath, and all kinds of other miscellaneous objects with London connections, such as this very elaborate sports trophy:


The next day we struck out for another area of London. Hal's and my descriptions of Hampstead Heath had intrigued Joan and Henry so I made a second visit there. This time we found it right away (Hal and I explored the neighborhood a bit more than we wanted to on our visit) as I was able to recognize the right street to take from the bus stop. It was considerably colder than on my first visit, and the trees looked much more fall-ish, but Parliament Hill was still green and hosting many walkers.


That's enough of London for a while. My next post will catch us all the way up to last weekend, when Henry and I undertook a driving expedition to Wales.

More London sights

We put in a full few days in London last week in addition to our day trips, and were fortunate in the weather most of the time. Some of our sight-seeing was constrained by errands needing to be run, such as picking up some forgotten souvenirs from the Stonehenge-Bath bus. Their office was near the Tower Bridge, though, so it was easy to combine the trips. (Plus we found a good inexpensive eatery—The Cat and Cucumber—in between bus lot and bridge for lunch.)

After walking across the Bridge (and taking many more photos of this incredibly photogenic structure) we headed upstream toward our main target, St. Paul's. Hal and Sally had heartily recommended climbing to the top and we found that to be good advice. It was a somewhat taxing climb, but the views, both at various points along the way, and at the summit, are fabulous. I was also quite taken with the details of the church itself, like the golden pineapple/acorn/or whatever in the picture above. I took this picture, I believe, from the Stone Gallery, which is the next-highest stopping point.

Here's a look at the view from the top (the Golden Gallery) of the lovely Thames, Blackfriars Bridge, The Eye, and points in between. What great weather for distance viewing!


The interior of the church is quite impressive, too, of course, and unbelievably huge, but no photos are allowed. The American Chapel on one end was a highlight for me. After walking all around we took some time to just sit and soak in the atmosphere (and also rest up from our climb).

We still had time for more sights, and since the Millennium Bridge is right there, leading to the Tate Modern, we went there for a quick visit. Here is a view of the Bridge from the Stone Gallery of St. Paul's. You might notice there's not much traffic on the footbridge. I didn't notice it until later, when we were crossing. There was a sign saying it was closed for a good bit of the day for inspection and maintenance. We trust they found no structural weaknesses!

Our visit to the art museum was brief, but about long enough for art that we old fogeys don't find as interesting as the older stuff. I did enjoy it more than I expected, however, particularly finding a gallery of Soviet propaganda posters quite fascinating. And the building itself is quite a marvel. Plus, it's so perfectly located in London! Here's a lovely sunset view from the Bridge heading back to the north bank, which is better for bus and tube catching.

Family trip

One more short day trip to describe and then we're back to the big city for a few posts.

This one was really special for me and my sister. We visited the place where our father had been stationed for the most of his World War II service in England. The airfield was called Earls Colne and it's not just been left to moulder. It's been turned into a thriving business/light manufacturing/recreation area by an enterprising and imaginative family, the Hobbs'.

Thanks to acquaintances we've made over the internet, and in person, through my Dad's WWII Journal, we were able to get in touch with Mr. Hobbs, the owner of the Earls Colne Business Park, and he was gracious enough to spend the morning showing us around the property. The picture above is of Mr. Hobbs, Joan and myself at the impressive memorial they dedicated on the property last year. Although the land that used to shake to the thunderous sound of large flights of B-26 medium bombers taking off is now the home of many prosperous businesses and much economic activity for the surrounding towns, the Hobbs' want its storied past to be remembered. They erected this memorial themselves. At the right is the plaque on the memorial that commemorates Dad's Bomber Group, the 323rd.

And on the left is the plaque honoring Robert Mims, Dad's friend, who was shot down in February, 1944, and spent the rest of the war as a POW in Germany. My relating of his story, as recounted in the Journal, is what lead us to meet him and his daughter, who gave us contact information for the Hobbs'. The internet truly is a wonderful thing, is it not?

Some traces of the original air base remain, and one of the minor runways is still used by pilots of small craft. There's also a hot air balloon landing area in another part of the property! Here is a picture of the old main runway, what's left of it, with the very interested tourists in the foreground. Thanks to Mr. Hobbs for taking this picture for us!


We think it's great that this land is being used productively in a way that benefits the surrounding area. What else were they fighting for, if not to allow this kind of peaceful, prosperous future to unfold? We really enjoyed our visit, and were, as you can see, very lucky this time with the weather. Here is part of the golf course whose molded terrain and lovely trees have replaced the flat featureless expanse needed for the wartime airfield:


After Mr. Hobbs deposited us back at the Kelvedon train station, we headed back to London, very pleased with having seen a bit of family history brought into the present.

Back to the Romans and beyond

'Way back beyond, indeed, as we took another day trip to Stonehenge and Bath. Related sites, certainly, but their bundling into one tour has more to do with geography, I imagine. At any rate, we visited them in comfort, thanks to Anderson Tours, and other than running into disappointingly bad weather in Bath, enjoyed the day tremendously.

The threatening weather actually added to the ambience of Stonehenge, where we took many pictures as we circled the stones and saw them from every angle (except, unfortunately, close up, which you're not allowed to do). It was blustery and cold, and although I'm sure the stones look good in the sunshine, we thought they looked just right under the clouds. An amazing place, although less imposing from a distance than I expected it would be. And the fact that there is so little there in the way of exploitation (just a little shop and some welcome loos) made an impression on us.

Back on the bus for the short hop to Bath, where we spent a good bit more time, as there is more to see. Unfortunately, we weren't able to amble around the city's famous architecture too much, due to an annoying rainstorm that was more than the light mist we were prepared to tolerate. So we ended up using a big chunk of our time relaxing over a hearty lunch. Here's mine:


Before eating, though, we took in the Roman baths and the Abbey, both of which were interesting—but the Baths definitely steal the show. The ruins (remains in British parlance) are pretty spectacular, and their accompanying museum is informative and presents their story well. We also joined a tour that gave us an even better perspective on the place, its history, and its still evolving archaeology. All the amenities were nice, too, as you can tell from this view on the left, taken from the ladies' loo, which looks out, appropriately enough, onto part of the bath complex.

I enjoyed the smaller exhibits almost as much as the imposing site as a whole. Some of my favorite items were the mosaics, an example of which is at the right here.

But, as I said, the baths are the thing. Amazingly intact after 2000 or so years, they are still beautiful testaments to Roman engineering prowess and odd social behaviors. Looking out over one of the steaming pools I thought this picture of a fellow tourist on the other side caught the mood of the place well.


Moving from the early years of A.D. to a thousand or so years later, the Abbey is also a beautiful piece of work. Right next to the baths, and on the site of part of the original Roman complex, as we learned in the museum, it makes for easy sight-seeing on a rainy day.


We did get to see some of the Georgian architecture for which the city is also known on our way out of town, but pictures taken through moving bus windows in the rain usually don't turn out worth sharing. At least we didn't have to drive ourselves home but could relax through the lovely Wiltshire countryside and on back to the big city. Where more adventures awaited.

Sorry for the long blog gap!

I promise I will catch up this week—as I will also catch up with work. I'm in southern Wales right now, with a little time to kill as we wait for weather to clear enough for a hike up the highest mountain in southern Britain. I'll get to this adventure in the next few days. But for now I'll start filling in the last week.

We opted to take day trips for most of the break time that we weren’t in London, in order to maximize the economic advantage of having lodging at the flat.

Our first day trip was to Blenheim Palace, near Oxford. It’s very easy to get to on the Oxford Tube, which I'd discovered when the kids and I took a trip up there. From the bus station in Oxford you catch a bus to Blenheim that lets you out right at the front gate. We got that information from Rick Steves, who wasn’t quite as clear about how you get from Blenheim back to Oxford, and that caused us a little trouble at the end of the day, but I’ll get to that.

The palace is pretty spectacular, if hard to believe as a single family residence, and we learned a bit of English history along the way. The picture at the top of the blog is of one of the topiary birds in the Italian Garden (as opposed to the English Garden; you can see part of one wing of the house in the background). The topiary was the most perfect I’ve ever seen, although I don’t consider myself an expert in this area.

The palace was named Blenheim for a famous military victory won by its first owner, who was also made Duke of Marlborough for his trouble. (They’re on the 11th Duke now, who gives a charming welcome at the end of the historical video in an unbelievably garish sports jacket.) Also, of more interest to me, it was where Winston Churchill was actually born, since he’s a cousin of the Dukes. (Princess Di was also a cousin—quite a pedigree.) They have a nice exhibit on Churchill in the house that’s included in the price of admission; the items I found of most interest were some of his letters home as a young man.

What we liked much more than the house, however, were the extensive grounds (the brochure says over 2,000 acres). There were gorgeous trees, engineered (but impressive) lakes and a waterfall built during the time when people with lots of money did such things, and more gorgeous trees. A favorite variety of theirs and ours was the Cedar of Lebanon, under which Joan is posing above on the left. One of the lakes, with a picturesque island, is on the right.

There’s also an imposing obelisk commemorating the eponymous battle, but we headed out there toward the end of our visit and were starting to get tired and ended up not being terribly impressed. Perhaps it was also because of having to dodge the piles of sheep dung all over the walk there. The sheep are very picturesque when viewed from afar on the hillside, but seen up close offer little to recommend themselves but prodigious quantities of fertilizer.

We decided to take a quick (we thought) stop by the estate’s maze on the way out. But it turned out to be quite an intricate maze. (Plus it wasn’t really on the way out.) We ended up cheating by coming out the way we went in, but it still took a while. The picture below was taken from the observation platform and shows part of the center of the maze, where hedges cleverly spell out “Blenheim,” but which we never found on the ground. The kids at the place were having a great time guiding their parents around, though.


Our lack of a clear idea of where to find the exit from the ridiculously large grounds caused us to miss the next to last bus for Oxford and have to wait for an hour for the last one. We spent the time pleasantly enough in a village pub, but it was a little irritating, kept us from being able to do any sight-seeing in Oxford (we were too tired by the time we got there) and generally reinforced our rather sour opinion of the British aristocracy. Blenheim was kind of a neat place to visit, and we had fun, but I’m not sure I’d rank it as highly as Rick Steves does. Gorgeous trees, though!

Trying to catch up....

A first effort to try and catch you up on our jam-packed last several days.

Before having our yummy Tex-Mex dinner and attending the concert at St. Martin's in the Fields, we took in several London landmarks. I managed to get my guests to the V&A first. Even Henry, who had protested. But he found plenty of interest once inside. And—surprise, surprise—there were galleries I hadn't seen on my previous visit. Like the Cast Courts, which is where the picture on the left was taken. A huge collection (as are all of the V&A's collections) of plaster casts of famous sculpture, it sounds weird, and it is, I guess, but also very impressive.

Joan and I also wandered through vast halls of tapestries, a whole room of amazing lacework, enormous rooms of other crafts like ivory carvings and ornate furniture. Our goal was the fabulous jewelry collection that I remembered from my earlier visit and we eventually made it there. (Although I still haven't found the musical instruments room.) But not without a major detour when we saw a hall that must have been a mile long filled with silver trinkets such as the monstrance pictured here. Too bad there was nothing beside it to prove its scale, but, believe me, it was three feet high if it was an inch. And the whole hall is full of stuff like this. Truly amazing stuff.

We made the mistake of deciding to take in Harrod's next, which was a mistake because it was Saturday and it was packed. I didn't enjoy it at all, when I had before. Possibly because the previous visit had exhausted all its charms. Or maybe it was just the crowds. At any rate, we didn't stay long. After buying some yummy baked goods for a picnic we split.

More park rambles followed. We wandered around through Belgravia to get to Green Park, where we saw the quite lovely and interestingly-designed Canadian Monument pictured here. Those are sculpted maple leaves on the surface of the monument under a thin stream of water, augmented by some real leaves from nearby trees. (Fall is really here now and the trees' color, while not in the same league with Maine's, is still quite nice.)

We also made it to the National Portrait Gallery, next door to the National Art Gallery we visited the day before. It was pretty interesting, and, of course, enormous. I cut my viewing time down to a manageable size by searching out the women's pictures. Of which there are precious few. However, the final room made the visit worthwhile because I saw a picture of my hero Vera Brittain, one that she refers to sitting for in The Testament of Experience, her World War II memoir. I was thrilled! In fact, the room she was in, the 20th century room, proved to be the most interesting, which is not what I'd expected upon entry to the Museum. I suppose that's the mark of a good museum, when you find something unexpected?

After such a busy day we were happy to relax with the beautful music elsewhere described.

I need to grade a few more papers before hitting the sack tonight, but will try to continue catching you up tomorrow. I leave you with a new shot I got of the ubiquitous London Eye this day, here with the back of the Horse Guards building, on the edge of St. James' Park, in the foreground.

A new coat!

I have a minute this morning to post a short note and correct a past omission. One of the highlights of a recent day's outing was buying the coat I've been looking for! This very nice leather jacket that actually isn't too heavy to be of use in San Antonio, yet with my other layers will be plenty warm enough for the winter here! I was so excited to find it, and find that it fit me (actually, I can't take credit for that—Joan's the one who found it on the rack). And it wasn't too expensive as I bought it at an Oxfam charity shop. Plus the money goes to a good cause.

It felt really good yesterday as the weather has turned a little blustery. The picture here was taken soon after the purchase in front of some still lovely flowers in St. James' Park.

A blog gap

There will be a paucity of blogging the next few days. A combination of lots of sight-seeing, three people sharing a computer, and work that I need to do when it's my turn on the machine mean less time for blog posts.

I do have time this morning to pose a quick question: what do the following London landmarks and disparate images have in common?

Hint: they're a Mexican food restaurant and and famous church (St. Martin's in the Fields) near Trafalgar Square.

Answer: Because of their proximity to each other, we chose to eat a light dinner (fine chicken quesedillas) at the restaurant before attending a fabulous concert in the church last night. The restaurant was a somewhat disorienting experience, given the food and the decor, but the concert was sublime. A selection of short choral pieces (Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert) both new (to me) and familiar, followed in the second half of the programme by the complete Mozart Requiem. Fabulous!

I'll try to catch you up on our other activities as quickly as I can.

Another walk in the park

We took advantage of another beautiful London day by taking a leisurely stroll through Hyde Park. Here's a sample of the blue sky we enjoyed, making a nice background for this Achilles statue near Hyde Park Corner. It was erected to honor Wellington and was made from the melted down cannons of his enemies! They knew how to make victorious monuments back in the day, didn't they?

Part of our walk took us by the Princess Diana memorial fountain, on her memorial walk. There are certainly a lot of reminders of the "People's Princess" in this part of London.

Since the bus we took from the Park into central-central London deposited us in Trafalgar Square, we decided to spend a bit of time in the National Gallery (sorry, no photography permitted) before heading to our main target for the day, the British Museum. An hour wasn't nearly long enough for the Gallery but we did get to see some amazing paintings in this gorgeous setting. We focused on the Italian Renaissance and the Impressionists, ecletics that we are.

The British Museum was as fascinating for me as before. Three more hours and very little duplication from my first visit. This time I concentrated on the Greek and Roman exhibits, which must be the most numerous of the Museum's categories. We ended up with the Elgin Marbles, which are spectacular, but I was just as charmed and intrigued by all the smaller items I saw, too. Fortunately photography is permitted here and I took a lot of pictures. Here's just one that I thought was pretty cool. A drinking cup (was it Etruscan? I think so but it could have been from any of another number of cultures—I just decided to take pictures of things that I liked and not worry about where they came from. If I had to stop and make notes each time, I'd only have gotten to see half as many things!)

Another new guest!

Just a quick post to celebrate my sister's arrival in the land of bubble and squeak. Henry met her at the airport to allow me some worktime in the flat. (Other than grading papers, I'm now set, work-wise for the break week and shouldn't have to spend too much of that time working!) Then we took a walk around the neighborhood, including through the Brompton Cemetery, where Henry took this picture, followed by a provisions run to the big Tesco.

One of the stops during our walk was at Stamford Bridge, the nearby home of local Premier League-leading, super-rich Chelsea Football Club, who I've tried not to like since they're resembling the Yankees more every day, but just can't help it since they have two of my favorite England players in their squad. When I saw this display, which lets you be a part of the team, and noticed that the empty seat was right in between these two guys, I couldn't resist doing the cheesy groupie thing. Henry obligingly took the picture. Go Blues!

Repeat visit required

After class yesterday I made my third visit to the Imperial War Museum, this time with a willing guest visitor. He enjoyed it so much, in fact, that he spent almost the whole two hours we were there on just the main floor! I couldn't believe it! There are 3 more floors, not counting the art galleries, with substantial exhibits. So he'll definitely have to go back on his next visit to London. He took the picture at the left of the motorcycle T.E. Lawrence (he of Arabia) was riding when he had his fatal crash. So cool! I had somehow missed seeing this on my previous visits.

I spent my time yesterday going very slowly through their excellent Holocaust section. Two hours was enough time to get about 2/3 of the way through, but that was really enough for one session. As one of my students described it: very intense. But also extremely interesting and educational.

We're awaiting another guest's arrival today, and I'm looking forward to our break week next week. I do love my students, but thinking about almost 3 weeks with no classroom teaching (we have site visits planned for the week after break) makes me smile. The next time I'm in the classroom will be election day. Yes, I've put my ballot in the mail, after consulting with Henry about local judges. If Obama loses Texas by one vote, I'll know it wasn't my fault.

In addition to over-visiting museums, another favorite travel activity of Henry's is car-tourism, and the picture below is of him ogling a noteworthy specimen along the Victoria Embankment. He's an expert at this arcane pursuit and has been treated to a lot of memorable sights already on this visit. Apparently London is a very interesting town for the car-tourist.


And, of course, a favorite activity of both of ours is sports tourism. Here's the scene as we were leaving O'Neill's after watching a satisfying World Cup qualifying win for England over Belarus. Good game, good brew, good atmosphere!

Off we went, into the wild green yonder....

This really was an adventurous day. We wanted to visit the Imperial War Museum annex in Duxford, which is where this vintage Spitfire is resting, in the lovely Cambridgeshire countryside. But there isn't a train that goes directly to the town where the museum is. However, the wonderful Visit Britain website, which has never steered me wrong, indicated that the Museum is not far from the train station in Whittlesford, so we bought tickets for that worthy village and hoped for the best.

After a few false starts in Whittlesford, like trying to get on a bus going the wrong way, we finally got some very good directions from a couple of friendly Whittlesford women, and were able to walk to the next town and get to the Museum in less than 20 minutes. We spent the whole afternoon there and enjoyed it very much. They have a large collection of flyable WWII-era planes (unfortunately no B-26's, but a few P-51's) that are lovingly preserved, as well as some others in the process of being lovingly restored. Also some informative exhibits about the Battle of Britain and the Blitz.

They have a whole section of the museum, this very impressive structure (shown with tourist for scale), devoted to the American contributions to the war and post-war defense efforts. There are a lot of planes in there, plus some very well-thought out exhibits giving details. There's a great map showing where U.S. airmen were stationed during the War that I plan to incorporate into my Dad's Journal website.

A very moving tribute to the many airmen lost from British bases lines the walk to the entrance. Here is the mercifully lightly inscribed panel which included Dad's Bomb Group. Some of the panels were literally covered in planes representing losses during the war.

Thanks to the help of the friendly Museum staff, we were able to find the correct bus to take us back to Whittlesford when our sight-seeing ended. We boarded the train, right on time, soon after being treated to this gorgeous sunset over the tidy homes of Whittlesford:

But our adventures weren't completely over. We still had to either hunt or gather provisions for a dinner in the London wilderness. Which actually seemed that way when we exited the Liverpool Street train station on the side full of office buildings that were empty for the night. However, we finally found our way to the City Road, and a yummy Indian restaurant called the Curry Leaf East (Henry was in the mood for spicy, and he got it!).

Then, rather than just head home, I thought H needed to see the Houses of Parliament in the nighttime, and he must have because he took a LOT of pictures there. Here is one of mine, which I might replace with one of his better ones later.

All along the Embankment

We took advantage of the super weather today and spent almost all of it outdoors and walking. So we're pretty pooped tonight but had a fun time. And got lots of good views—you just can't get too many pictures of the Houses of Parliament, especially when you have a new guest to feature in them.

Plus just walking along the various embankments, and crossing the odd picturesque bridge when you feel like it, is a pretty cheap date. We did stop for a late lunch in a charming little pub called the Southwark Tavern, near London Bridge. After being thus fortified, we stumbled upon a real gem of a church, Southwark Cathedral, parts of which date from the 1100 or 1200's. But it's still in use, as we got there just as a service ended and I got to hear an amazing organ piece being played as a recessional.

You also can't take too many pictures of the Tower Bridge, or the Tower of London, either, especially when the latter's walls are draped in fall finery.

We finished up with a fine dinner at a pub near the flat, where I had the best fish and chips yet on the trip. It's great to have such a good place so close at hand. Our dessert was leftover birthday cake in the flat, but it brought back visions of the store we happened to see when changing busses near Picadilly Circus. How about one of these for a wedding (or any other occasion) cake?! Does the one on the left remind any other Amens of Kelsey's wedding dress?

Another day, another great museum

After nipping back down to the Churchill Museum for some souvenir shopping, and a couple hours of good work in the office, I made it to another wonderful museum yesterday, the Tate Britain.

The big attraction for me there was their collection of Turners, so I was pleased to discover I'd arrived in time to catch a tour of those galleries. The docent was entertaining and informative and though I was disappointed to learn that many of these pieces are out on loan, what was there was still pretty spectacular. And the rest of the museum was very fine, too. I learned more about other British painters during the Turner talk, and went to seek them out. Another disappointment was that the Blake room was closed, but it's due to open before I leave, so I'll have to make another trip down to Pimlico.

No time for more blogging today. I've still got some errands to run before Henry arrives. Yes! I'm about to have another guest!

I'll leave you with a lovely sunset, as seen last night from my living room window. We've certainly had great weather lately, and can't help but wonder how long it will last.