London Calling

We arrived in London and, after looking at the trolley sticking out of the bricks at King’s Cross, took a tube to our hotel. From there, we headed to the National Gallery, walking through a park full of swans, geese, and ducks.

            We began in the exhibits featuring art from the 1200s-1500s. As you can imagine, there was quite a lot of religious art, but also depicted were Greek stories, such as a painting of Helen being carried off by Paris while her companions stare after her dispassionately. Another featured the hunter who had the misfortune of running into Diana, who promptly turned him into a stag and had him torn apart by his own hounds.

            After methodically going through every room, we felt the need to get some food at the café, and after a refreshing “fairy cake”, we began our journey to the next part of the museum, the wing of art from the 1600s-1700s. After seeing the two pieces of art we most wanted to see- a Vermeer and a Sassoferrato. Once we had admired those, we once again went through room by room. We raced through art from several other centuries so we could get to the Globe in time.

            The original Globe Theater was destroyed, but there is now a new one, and from April to September, they perform Shakespeare’s plays. The play we were seeing was King John.

            We were standing for three hours, right up against the edge of the stage, but the performance was captivating enough that I managed to forget it (the standing, not the play). The play was extremely well done, with music played on the stage (mainly drums, an accordion, and bells).

            After the play, we walked back to the hotel to sleep.

            The next day, we woke up to board a boat to the Tower of London. At my parents’ insistence, we sat on the top deck outside to get a better view of the surrounding buildings, bridges, and Ferris wheels.

            We arrived at the Tower and made our way through a series of rooms connected by winding staircases. Some had been built/remodeled by King Henry III, and some by King Edward the First. From there we went into some of the prisons and saw a bunch of words/images carved into the rock by prisoners at the Tower. We left that part and went into a courtyard to see the famed ravens, now kept under lock and key, since it was prophesied that if the ravens left, the monarchy would fall.

            Our next stop was the Crown Jewels, which I can’t even describe. I think I’m still seeing sparkles from the bazillions of diamonds, rubies, emeralds, gold, sapphires, pearls, and other gems adorning the crowns, scepters, orbs, swords, robes, dishes, and spoons. One of the punch bowls was bigger than my computer, and the spoon, shaped like a shell attached to a stick, was at least as tall as me. Some of the crowns weighed about 5 pounds, or more, and we saw several famous gems, such as the Koh-i-Noor diamond, which weighed about 150 carats, and the Black Prince’s ruby. It was truly marvelous.

            We then got decadent ice cream before racing through the instruments of torture exhibit, featuring a rack and the Scavenger’s Daughter, which essentially locks a person tightly as they are folded into three parts.

            We took a boat back and went to Westminster Abbey, a glorious and extremely large church. At the door, we were equipped with audio guides narrated by Jeremy Irons, who walked us through the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, as well as various other tombs of monarchs. Some of the tombs that were not narrated but were still there include Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, and the bane of my freshman year, David Livingstone. I was only prevented from yelling at his grave, “Why didn’t you have a more notable impact on society?” by the fact that I was in a church. We passed the RAF chapel, as well as the tombs of Mary Queen of Scots, several King Richards, and Queen Elizabeth. Then we came to Poet’s Corner, which included (tombs and simple monuments) of Chaucer, Blake, Handel, C.S Lewis, Dickens, Jane Austen, Bronte, Shakespeare, Lord Byron, Tennyson, and many, many more.

            We left the abbey to eat and returned for evensong. It was simple but beautiful, and the surroundings were glorious.

            The next day, I went to the Sherlock Holmes Museum while my parents went to a café. The first floor was a living setting, complete with Watson’s hat, a pipe, a magnifying glass, a deerstalker, a violin, and a large assortment of chemistry bottles. I continued to the second floor, which had narratives and relics from various mysteries everywhere; there was even a large portion of the wall devoted to the head of the Hound of the Baskervilles. Newspaper clippings about Holmes and Watson lined the walls, as well as large pictures of people who had inspired the characters.

            The last floor contained life-size models of scenes from the novels. The space was rather small, and I nearly tripped over Irene Adler before nearly stumbling into a figure who was sprawled dead on the floor in a quite inconvenient manner.

 I quite enjoyed myself, and was very proud when I did not buy everything in the shop.

            From the museum, we boarded a train to Stratford.