We arise to have breakfast downstairs at The Orange, and Barney tries the massive “Full English,” while I have two poached eggs and some blood sausage. The fellow who serves us is quite nice (we met him yesterday), and the breakfast is incredible, we won’t need to eat for days.
Walked to Victoria Station, thinking we’d find a map – I’m a bit obsessed about maps, really need to have one all the time, and I’m a bit anxious without one. Wi-fi is not constant, and the only alternative is the huge DK book which is wonderful but weighs 1.5 pounds. But the maps at information there are all for rail, not general maps. The search continues. We take the #211 bus thinking it is about the same route as our #11, but to our surprise it crosses the bridge, so we get off at the other side and get some lovely photos of the north bank of the river.
Walking back, we see that Parliament is in session …. they seem to be scrambling because of the tie poll revealed on Sunday about Scottish independence. Folks here seem quite apocalyptic about it, even Paul Krugman weighed in, which seems like a bit of putting your nose into someone else’s business.
We walk up to the Churchill Museum and War Cabinet, passing by the immense institute of Mechanical engineers. Why don’t we have one of these in the US? The museum is fantastic … we learned so much about Churchill, especially his early life as a exporter and soldier, which in the US we don‘t learn much about, it is as though he sprang from the clam shell like Botticelli’s Venus, full blown as an older heaven-set man with a cigar. The War Cabinet rooms are underground the Treasury building, reinforced to protect them from bombs, but luckily they were never hit. People lived in very tight spaces, with many secretaries and supporter staff living there as well to accommodate his 16-hour workdays. The map room was amazing, showing troops all over the world on maps and on wooden signs with moveable tabs that showed which forces were deployed where. In this age of the internet this all seems so prehistoric, yet they won a world war. One of the most moving was a map which had holes in it from pins placed where ships were lost crossing the Atlantic … there were so many pins that the map was virtually without paper there were so many pins. The loss of life there in the early years of the war was stunning.
Out into the sunshine, walked across the street to St. James Park, and went to the lovely Inn the Park for a small bite, shared a sandwich, some bubbly elderflower soda and an apple cake. The squirrels here are extremely bold and people-focused, one squirrel climbed up the 3-foot-high wire fence to try to get treats, which rather surprised Barney. We walked down the Mall through the Triumphant Arch to the Embankment tube station (still found no map anywhere) and off to the Tower of London, where we had bought tickets online.
It’s clear that this is an immense tourist attraction based on the signage. Love the directions …. “ go past the Roman wall then turn right” and we emerge into a huge space to what was the moat, now filed with grass and ceramic poppies. The poppies are stunning … a memorial to the 888,000 armed forces who died in World War I, spilling out of the opening in the castle turret to over the grass. Each poppy was made by hand, each is unique … a grim reminder of how heavily the war hit England … because the US entered the war rather late, our losses while significant, pale in comparison.
The Tower of London is simply huge. Huge. Madeleine recommended that we get the audioguide which we did, and it was quite useful. Realizing that to see the entire place would be the work of a whole day, we focused on the medieval palace, the mint and the Crown Jewels. The mint was the actual mint for the whole country for centuries. Wee learned that Isaac Newton was Master of the Mint in the early 18th century, moving them from the silver standard to the gold standard, when he wasn’t busy discovering the laws of physics and calculus.
The medieval palace was built by Richard the Lionheart (who actually kept lions there), then expanded by Henry III and Edward I, who built the overwater gate for the royal barge and this beautiful bedroom, outfitted at it would have been in the late 13th century. The walls would have been painted brightly, and the original timbers are still there. The windows have sills about 2 foot deep, big enough to sit on. We walked the rest of the palace on, then around the upper wall to the building with the upper wall with its incredible views of the Thames (this was a defensive castle) then around to the building with the Crown Jewels.
Clearly the Crown Jewels were the main attraction of this whole place. But at 4:30, when they close at 5:30, we walked right in. This is where every tour group comes, because they had those Disneyland-like stanchions to mark off the lines and tell you how long the wait will be. After several preparatory rooms, we finally see the brilliant jewels themselves – the anointing spoon, various scepters and orbs, ceremonial swords and the crowns. Barney is knowledgeable about large gemstones and he knew even before we read the text about the gems:the Cullinan I diamond is in the coronation scepter, Cullinan II is in the crown the king or queen wears to depart from the coronation (there are several crowns involved in the ceremony), and the Koh-i-Nor diamond is in another of the queen’s crowns, probably her everyday clean-the-house crown. Two moving sidewalks take you past the Crown Jewels so no one stays too long (we doubled back and did both). Circling back the other side as the costumed Yeoman Warders gently but firmly moved us out at closing time, it was clear how truly immense this place is. Afterwards we spent some time just looking at the poppies … they were so moving.
Feeling it was too early to go have dinner, we looked at what was open late among the museums etc., and voila, the British Library was open until 8pm! Off we went, and it was breathtaking. We had one hour before closing by the time we arrived, and spent all of it in the treasury room, and it is aptly named. It’s hard to believe that so many cultural treasures were gathered in one place. First the Christian religious works: two Gutenberg bibles from the 15th century, bibles from Armenia, Ethiopia, Romania, the first bible in English published with line illustrations (not medieval ones), a sumptuous Book of Hours from 1410 given by the Duke and Duchess of somewhere to their nephew Henry VI for Christmas, etc. (check out the actual pages at: www.bl.uk/treasures). And more religious works: Qurans from 11th century Cairo and 14th century Morocco, two medieval Jewish Haggadahs from France and Greece, Hindu Vedas from the 10th century, Buddhist Sutras from the 9th century. Both the Japanese and the Chinese had the earliest printed works on paper in the 9th century, and they had moveable type by the 10th century, long before Gutenberg and company, along with lavishly illustrated stories from all over Asia. We saw a handwritten letter from Galileo to a friend about one month before his trial for heresy, and Leonardo da Vinci’s notebooks with plans for a pipe organ. Jane Austen’s manuscript for Persuasion was there with corrections in her own hand, along with Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre. In politics, an original copy of the Magna Carta is the big thing, but we were also captivated by the angry letter from Queen Elizabeth II to her parliament telling them off as she dissolved parliament because they continued to bug her about getting married and having children, complete with crossouts and ink splotches, evidence of her anger. And then the music: Mozart’s catalog of his works in his own hand, pages of Handel’s Messiah, from Bach’s Well Tempered Clavier, a piece of polyphony from the 12th century one of the earliest ever found, and music printed by Gutenberg in 1478. Stravinsky’s Pulcinella score, songs by Benjamin Britten, even the Beatles’ hand-written lyrics for Help and Imagine. And then, Thomas Tallis’ Spem in Alium, one of my all-time favorite pieces in the world. Needless to say, I was simply overwhelmed, and I could have stayed there for days.
Once again, we were among the last to leave, kicked out by the security guards. We walked a few blocks to a fish and chips place highly rated on TripAdvisor, The North Sea, which was terrific. We split one enormous portion of fish – the one piece was about 12 inches long, plus terrific fries, great beers and ales, and we got some steamed broccoli and a salad just to have something that was not fried, followed by a homemade apple crisp. Luckily we had a 10-block walk home from Victoria station to wear off a bit. One the walk home, I said to Barney what a great day it had been, and what would make it perfectly wonderful would be if our suitcase had finally shown up. When we got back to The Orange, there it was!
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