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.
