The Brezinski Blog of Adventure: Lovely Londontown!

Ciao, Vesuvio! We're leaving cloudy, rainy Napoli for cloudy, rainy Londontown! :) London's on both of our "short lists" and means a lot to D, so it was a priority that we went. This was our first trip and only about four days total, so it was a whirlwind of activity.

Busy evening after a day full of flying. We badly maneuvered the London public transit system (which was WAY more complicated that it looked!) and it took us twice as long as we expected to get to our apartment, which was in the southern suburbs. After going, we again badly maneuvered the bus/overground system to get to dinner - a highly-recommended restaurant called Olley's that does gluten free traditional fish and chips every Monday and Tuesday. D was so excited to have good beer!

My fish! And mushy peas! SO GOOD!!!

The next day, we were up before dawn to catch our tour out of the city. Our first stop was Stonehenge, about an hour or so drive away. These are some of the burial mounds that surround Stonehenge. They contain the burial remains of important men dating back several thousand years. The small mounds like this are generally from the Neolithic period.

I fiddled with this photo a bit, so it's digitally enhanced some. But the day was clear and ICY COLD with temps. below freezing and an icy windchill. The green grass belies the fact that it was frost-covered!

The British government just completed a multi-million-pound renovation of the visitor's center at Stonehenge, which should be opening next month (December 2013). It looks amazing! There's not much else here, being out in the middle of nowhere surrounded by wheat fields and free-range hog farms, but it was lovely. The new visitor's center will feature an overground tram line that goes from the center through some of the thousands of burial mounds and to the stone circle.

SHEEP! I bet they were warm in that bitter wind!

Curious raven hanging around. Stonehenge has a lot of ravens and crows.

The second stop on our tour was the city of Bath. Bath is the former home of the great author Jane Austen (of Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, etc.). It's famous for the ancient Roman Baths that were built here, surrounding the only natural hot spring found anywhere in the British Isles. Thousands of years ago the Romans built a lead-bottomed bathing pool that was rumored to heal the sick, and people have been coming ever since. Even royal monarchs have been said to have been cured of disease and had infertility cured by bathing here.

Haha! Inside joke...

Bath has a large Cathedral, which houses the remains of hundreds of people. I loved reading the tombstones on the walls of the church!

The Cathedral ceiling is really unique. At this point in our European travels we've seen dozens and dozens of great cathedrals, and none quite compare to this one.

Neat.

Sad to see the headstone for such a young baby girl. I only hope that when I die I get such a lovely epitaph!

These are TEAPOTS! I love the Marmite one! :)

D standing in front of the cathedral. On either side of the cathedral doors you can see carvings of the original Jacob's Ladder!

By the park in Bath.

Our next stop was a small town of Stratford-on-Avon (originally called Stratford-upon-Avon due to its location on the Avon River). On the way, we drove through the Cotswolds region of England. Once we passed the walls of white chalk, we came to lush, rolling hills of green farmland.

Those are sheep way up there on the hillside.

We passed a couple of thatched-roof cottages but I wasn't fast enough to catch a photo. Instead, I managed to catch these lovely manor houses at a stop.

D snoozing on our way into Stratford.

Tudor-style homes in Stratford.

Stratford-on-Avon is the village in which William Shakespeare was born. We were lucky enough to see the house (which has been saved in almost original condition with furniture and wall paintings, etc. from Shakespeare's time). Shakespeare is also buried here.

Shakespeare's father was a fairly wealthy man. He was a glovemaker, and practiced his craft in the yard and on the bottom floors of the home. Upstairs there are three bedrooms and a loft, and on the side is a tiny attached two-room cottage the family rented out and William later lived in with his new wife. William got married when he was 26 years old - a very young age for a man to marry at that time - and his wife was 8 years his senior (also very odd). Rumors abound that they had a lapse in judgment and she got pregnant while they were courting, and he married her out of necessity.

In the museum, we were serenaded by two actors who sang songs and performed pieces of Shakespeare's "Much Ado About Nothing".

Day 2: London! We had grand plans for this day... But they didn't work out so well. Early in the morning we took the bus to Westminster Bridge to start our walking tour, and the light rain almost immediately turned into a heavy rain with large gusts of wind (rendering the umbrellas USELESS and soaking us to the skin!) and pellet-sized hail. We very quickly gave up on that plan and rethought our day!

Foggy refuge on the bus - finally! Heat!

Taking the bus to the British Museum!

And of course, as soon as we get there, the sky clears. Ah well, it was warm inside the museum and freezing cold outside!

We took a cheapie tour through the museum for help, since this is one of those kinds of places where you can aimlessly wander for days, like the Louvre in Paris. I'm so glad we took the tour - we saw so much and learned the most interesting little tidbits!

The ROSETTA STONE! Woot! Who does that?! We do!

It was fascinating to see the ancient words carved into black stone.

One of my most favorite things - Assyrian lions. Assyria was a region made up of mostly modern-day Iraq, Syria, Turkey, and Iran, and the culture is fascinating (and brutal).

Quick diversion to the Egypt section (we go back to Assyria in a second). This is the statue of Pharoah Ramesses II, carved in approximately 1250 B.C. He has been called Egypt's greatest pharoah and was beloved by many and emulated by no fewer than nine Pharoahs after his death.

Briefly back to the Assyrians. The Assyrians believed that lions represented all that is bad about human nature - greed, jealousy, betrayal, animal instinct. Lions were also bred for sport and there were a lot more of them way back then. This is a wall relief from the former bedroom of an Assyrian king showing a long and dramatic scene of a lion hunt (slaughter) in a stadium. First, a young slave boy opens the hatch to let the lions out, and they are chased into the center of the ring and kept there by guards and large dogs. Then, hunters and the king on chariots come out and fight them to the death, with, of course, the king winning all and slaying the "evils of human nature". At the end slaves carry the lion carcasses to a celebration, to skin them and partake in a feast. We tend to think of it in modern time as being brutal and ugly, but there is no doubt that the artwork and detail here is incredible. It shows emotions on the faces of the lions so well. It's heartbreaking. The wall reliefs are enormous and the scene stretches for about 200-300 feet.

Jumping over to the Parthenon into ancient Greece. Here is the head of a horse that was part of a carving in the corner of the Parthenon in Athens (to see it, check out our blog entry on Athens, Greece from last Spring). The marbles were saved from destruction and neglect from Athens about a hundred years ago and by an act of British Parliament have actually been named citizens of England - which means that even though Athens is now a fairly stable city, the marbles will not be returned to Greece. Anyway, this is one of the horses of the chariot of Phoebus Apollo, the Greek god of sunrise and sunset. Every morning, he'd drive his chariot and horses from the underworld to Earth, pulling the sun behind them. Every evening, they'd pull the sun below with them. You can see the exertion in the horse's face - it's sunset here, and the horse has been pulling the chariot all day. It's facial veins are bulging and its eyes are bugging out. You can practically see the saliva foaming at its mouth. Incredible. And there was so much more than this - all the marbles are in the museum and each has a beautiful story!

Like the lions to the Assyrians, centaurs represented animal behavior to the Greeks. Any time you see a centaur, think of bad behavior. Those dudes just can't control themselves. Here is a relief from the outer walls of the Parthenon. This is part of the story of Athena (from Athens, get it?). There was a wedding, and some of the human guests thought it would be nice to invite the centaurs. The other half of the crowd said no, that as soon as centaurs drank they got rowdy and violent (sound familiar?), but it was too much of an insult to not invite them, so there they are, and there they went drinking, and oops, there's the inevitable fight. What you don't see here is a vase that the centaur is about to smash into the face of the human he's holding by the neck. Ancient art is so violent, but you can't doubt the skill of the artists!

This is called the Portland Vase, and is probably one of the most incredible pieces of hand-blown glass ever created. It was created in approximately 5 A.D. somewhere around Rome, during the ancient Roman Empire. The artisan who created it first developed a ball of blue glass (a rare color), then coated it in white glass, and blew it into a vase shape. When it solidified, an artisan (perhaps the same one, or a skilled jem-cutter) then used special tools to carefully scrape away the white glass down to the blue inner layer, creating a scene in which white characters stand out from the blue. It's the same way cameos are created. The detail is astounding, and it's an absolute miracle it's survived in this condition 'til now! A hundred or so years ago, it was smashed by a tourist at the British Museum into several thousand pieces, and the whole thing has been put together using a scanning electron microscope!

These are the Lewis (or "Uig") Chessmen, some of the pieces of one of the oldest and most complete ancient chess sets ever found. They were carved in the 1100s in what is now Scotland, and their exact origin is unknown (it is suspected that they originate from the Trondheim, Norway region). They are mainly carved from walrus ivory and some from whale teeth. They are fascinating and unique for the expressions on the pieces' faces, some of which are really funny.

I was unable to get a picture of it, but if you have a chance, look up the "berserker" and the queen of this chess set. They have really unique physical positions.

When Napoleon Bonaparte died on the island of St. Helena in 1821 his face was captured in a plaster "death mask", which was then used to make copies. This is an original first cast of his face, one and a half days after he died.

Gebelein Man is one of the earliest mummies ever found from Egypt. He lived and died approximately 5,000 years ago in pre-dynastic Egypt (before the Pharoahs) and was buried in the sand in Gebelein, Upper Nile, Egypt on a reed mat. When he was buried, he was laid in the fetal position with his head turned south, to the land of the dead. He was buried with all that was believed to be necessary in the afterlife - food, water, tools, etc. This is before the time of crypts and sarcophagi, and the sand that surrounded him in the pit he was buried in quickly dried out his body and inhibited bacterial growth, leaving much of his tissue intact (hair, fingernails, etc.). Egyptians later stumbled across such bodies buried in the sand and inevitably felt the need to develop more secure methods of burial (sarcophagi) to better preserve bodies for the afterlife.

A replica of a headdress from the kingdom of Ur (the crushed original is on the left). Whoever was buried in this was put into a ditch with soil piled on top. The soil compressed and crushed the treasure, which was later found and replicated. Ur is now known as Iraq.

The personal belongings of Sir John Dee, the personal magician of Queen Elizabeth. During her reign, he was one of her closest advisors, using magic and divination to help her on the throne. His coded signature, based on his glasses that he wore, were the inspiration for the "007" of James Bond. Wild!

The replica ceremonial mask based on the ancient mask and faceplate discovered at Sutton-Hoo, in England. Cast in the 7th century, these pieces (there are many that I did not photograph) are somewhere based in reality AND myth. They're from a period of history that we don't know much about, and before their discovery, nobody thought anyone at that time was as skilled an artisan to create beauties like these!

D standing in front of a northwestern US/Canadian Native tribe totem pole.

Easter Island statue.

If I remember correctly, this doorway was from Papua New Guinea.

Another Papua New Guinea piece, I think. This is a ceremonial statue that is placed outside the men's hut. I think it's kind of terrifying...

Dia de los Muertos skeletons from Mexico.

Painting from a country in Africa (I can't remember which one, sorry) depicting The Last Supper with animals.

The following photos I didn't document well enough to caption properly, I'm sorry. They're all from various tribes and regions in Africa.

Set of short doors.

Many art pieces created from remnants of guns and other weapons used in regional civil war.

Beautiful baskets.

Ivory mask.

Quick diversion back to Egypt.

And back to my Assyrian lovelies. These are depictions of some of the Gods.

Back to the Assyrian lions. They're fascinating to look at from a diagonal angle. From the front you see the two front legs standing close together, and from the side they look as if they're striding forward to protect the inhabitants of the city.

Cuneiform (reed) writing on the Assyrian lion bases, describing the ascent of the king that placed them.

What a doorway!

The dogs I mentioned earlier from the Assyrian lion hunt.

An Assyrian God.

A few years back, the British Museum took the Assyrian lions (pictured above) and deep-cleaned all the debris off of them. On the base, they found a game scratched into the surface that dates back to the creation of the lions, and is the predecessor to today's game of chess. It is posited that the guards standing at the gates would occasionally play this game, or perhaps visitors waiting at the gates to be seen by the king played as well. After this discovery, the British Museum contacted other museums around the world to tell them of this discovery, and upon further investigation, several other playing boards were uncovered, including the Assyrian lions in the Louvre!

The Nereid Monument was a tomb built in the early 4th century B.C. for a man named Arbinas, a king of the Xanthian people in Turkey. It fell into ruin, and the pieces were brought here and reassembled to show the eastern side of the monument. Incredible. Unfortunately, we had to stop after this because the museum was closing, but there are tens of thousands of other pieces to look at! I'd love to go back!

After the British Museum, we walked a short way down the street to the Metro, and next door is a Starbucks and a Wagamama restaurant. Wagamama is highly recommended by everybody, including friends in Naples, Rick Steves, and all my guide books. I had a coconut milk, lemongrass, and rice noodle soup. Very good!

And D got the chicken katsu curry, their most famous dish and the most popular by far - and he LOVED it!

We met up with London Walks in the evening for another tour. This one was entitled, "Ghost, Gaslamps, and Guinness!" and through a short walk described some of the ghost stories and history of the Covent Garden area. We stopped by Nell of Old Drury for a pint halfway through!

D got his pint!

Covent is all prettied up for the holidays!

Covent Garden, across the plaza.

Nice guy with a guitar playing tunes, including the Beatles (which EVERYBODY sang along with, of course!).

On a barbershop window - I loved these!

Fun reflection shot in a store window in Covent Garden!

I had to.

Day 3: Peckham Rye Park, just a short walk down the street from our rented apartment.

The neighborhood of Peckham Rye is very international and multicultural. The two main ethnic groups here are Polish and people from various central African countries. There was an excellent Cameroonian restaurant just across the street that we never got to try and I regret that, because the place was always packed!

The local market on the corner.

Hunkered down trying to keep warm while we waited for the overground!

D in front of the Tower Bridge next to the Tower of London!

Looking at the Shard across the river Thames!

HMS Belfast

The ONE Invader we found on our entire trip! London is practically devoid of any good street art! I was disappointed about this!

For lunch I made a reservation at Belgo Centraal, a famous Belgian restaurant in London's theater district.

NOM.

The beer menu was extensive - D had a lot of fun!

Frites and moules! I was a happy camper!

The delicious aroma of my mussels... Mmm!

As a surprise for an early Christmas gift, I bought D a ticket to see STOMP at the Ambassador's Theatre. It was so great! I can't believe as a percussion lover he hadn't seen it yet! He loved it! :)

A pretty spot just 'round the corner from the theatre called Seven Dials.

In the Underground watching a guy with one arm play a fantastic version of Coldplay's "Viva la Vida".

Piccadilly Circus

Walking from Piccadilly Circus to the river.

Playing in the leaves!

War Memorial. Remembrance Day was November 1st. Brits celebrate with red poppies.

Heading to Trafalgar Square.

In Trafalgar Square!

The London Eye from across the river.

Getting closer to Big Ben!

And Westminster Abbey!

Buckingham Palace!

For dinner, we stopped at a place called Wahaca, a Mexican restaurant that was recommended on the gluten free/celiac boards. I was so impressed by their separate gluten free menu and criteria for minimizing cross-contamination I had to take a picture of the menu. :)