We flew from Las Vegas to London with a brief layover in Vancouver. We had just enough time to grab a bite to eat and check out the Native American carvings in the airport.
We had never been to London and were excited to spend ten days exploring. We were staying in Greenwich so we walked to the Thames River. Behind us and across the Thames was Canary Wharf.
We made our way up to the Royal Observatory in Greenwich Park. It was closed, but we enjoyed looking at the exterior.
Pete felt thrilled standing next to the Prime Meridian. But since it was summer, the time zone was British Summer Time rather than Greenwich Mean Time.
The next day we went to the City and first checked out The Monument, a 61 meter tall Doric column that commemorates the 1666 fire of London that destroyed most of the buildings.
We climbed 311 steps to the top.
From the top we could see Tower Bridge. We were curious about the high walkways on the bridge and decided to visit it another day.
We walked across London Bridge, another thrill. It’s not clear how the 17th century nursery rhyme London Bridge is Falling Down came to be but it was reconstructed many times over the centuries.
Pete had visited the Tate Modern while on a business trip in 2000, so he was eager to show Kristina this interesting building that was converted from the former Bankside Power Station. Redesigned by Herzog & de Meuron in the 1990’s, the twisting part of the building was a 2016 expansion to enable more gallery space.
There were a number of Jenny Holzer exhibits, including Inflammatory Essays based on ‘crackpot literature’ found by the artist. Originally posted as flyers around New York City in the early 1980’s so people could find them by chance, it was purchased by the Tate in 1983.
In a nearby gallery focused on cities was this work by Kader Attia. It is a model of the ancient city of Ghardaïa in Algeria made entirely of couscous. Behind it is a Mark Bradshaw painting.
The Japanese artist Susumu Koshimizu created Surface to Surface in 1971. We watched a video of him explaining how the different textures in the piece were an exploration of the world as it is.
We saw Strip by Gerhart Richter, a digital print that explores what has happened to the artist in our modern, digital world.
In another gallery devoted to Gerhart Richter’s Cage (1)-(6) paintings we learned the artist was listening to music by John Cage while he painted the series.
We went to the top floor of the Tate Modern to see the views. The curved building on the right is 20 Fenchurch Street designed by Rafael Viñoly. It’s nicknamed ‘the walkie-talkie’ and has been controversial because it bulges onto the neighboring properties.
No trip to London would be complete without a visit to the British Museum. It was established in 1753 to house their vast collections of the world’s treasures. This part of the museum is the Queen Elizabeth II Great Court, which was developed of glass and steel in 2001 by Foster and Partners and surrounds the round Reading Room from 1857.
This 6th century Amhitābha Buddha was a gift from the Chinese government to the British Museum in 1938. We especially liked how the white marble of the Buddha fit in with the elegant marble steps of the museum.
This contemporary piece, Large Feather Leaves Bowl by Hosono Hitomi, took six months to create because she attached the 1,000 porcelain bisque leaves by hand.
A highlight was seeing part of the Amaravati Collections of India. This is the Great Stupa (the dome used to hold ashes from Buddhist monastics) that was carved in the 3rd century. On this double-sided limestone slab, the Buddha stands at the entrance to the Great Stupa.
The other side of the slab has carvings from about 150 BC and is among the oldest surviving from India. On this side the Buddha is depicted through symbols like these footprints, throne and parasols rather than as a man.
Knowing we would be visiting Scotland soon, we looked on eagerly at these ancient chess pieces from the Isle of Lewis. Carved from walrus tusks and whale teeth (who had died of natural causes), the chess pieces were found in the outer Hebrides in 1831.
We also enjoyed the Ancient Egypt gallery, with its granodiorite carvings of the lion goddess Sekhmet that date to the 13th century BC. Each has a sun disc behind her head and is life-sized.
This 9th century BC Assyrian winged, human-headed lion is part of the Balawat Gates is believed to be from the entrance of King Ashurnasirpal II’s palace in Nimrud (near present day Mosul).
When we visited Trafalgar Square, we saw this contemporary sculpture The Invisible Enemy Should Not Exist and liked the juxtaposition with the similar piece at the British Museum. Created by Michael Rakowitz, an Iraqi-American artist, who was protesting the looting of the National Museum of Iraq in 2003 after the US-led invasion. Rakowitz wants to recreate all 7,000 objects that were looted using cheap materials, like in this piece that is made of 10,500 date syrup cans. “The date was to Iraq what the cigar was to Cuba and wine was to France,” says Rakowitz.
There are still a few iconic red telephone booths around London, so Pete went inside for a closer look.
We went to the Royal Portrait Gallery to see the 2019 best portrait contest winners. Our favorite was Unit by David Booth.
“In Unit, Booth aims to challenge traditional portraiture by presenting a composite portrait created with studies made from a number of sitters. His aim is not to present one person from a single viewpoint, but rather to explore the possibility of portraying multiple identities.”
This is State of Play by Fiona White. The woman portrayed is Louise who grew up in Papau New Guinea and the portrayal of her with the boy are a contemporary depiction of Madonna and child.
We loved walking all around London and averaged 12k steps each day. In Kensington and Chelsea we liked the contrast between the white and red bricks we frequently saw.
We spent the better part of a day at the Natural History Museum. Superintendent Richard Owen in the mid 19th century is credited for correcting many faults in the museum.
“By making the Natural History Museum an institution for everyone, Owen transformed our expectations of what museums are for,” Bill Bryson.
Owen described it as a cathedral to nature, and we found it brilliant. There was a blue whale skeleton overhanging the main hall.
We learned a lot with the thoughtful displays, such as these giraffes that enabled us to compare the skeleton to the full animal. Surprisingly, giraffes have the same number of neck vertebrae as humans.
Throughout the ‘cathedral’ were great details like this dog.
We learned about Charles Darwin and his voyage on the Beagle.
There are so many incredible fossils, like this giant ground sloth of South America. It resembled a dinosaur but actually was a mammal, and it went extinct only 10,000 years ago.
Pete is next to a giant pinosaur, a type of ichthyosaurus, which was found by Mary Anning, aka the fossil woman, in the 18th century.
We took a River Bus up the Thames, an inexpensive way to take a river cruise.
This is the Millennium Bridge, a pedestrian only bridge near the Tate Modern.
We found lots of good vegan restaurants around London. Deliciously Ella also sells packaged foods in supermarkets.
And the desserts were good too. Our favorite was the chocolate peanut butter fudge.
We walked through Hyde Park.
And couldn’t resist giving an almond to this cute squirrel. Clearly we weren't the first to feed the wildlife.
We saw a great blue heron and quite a few mute swans. In the background is a Henry Moore sculpture.
We also saw a black-headed gull and an Egyptian goose.
We strolled through the Italian Garden.
And on to the Serpentine Galleries.
The Faith Ringgold exhibit showed her five decades of art-making that challenged African American concepts of identity and gender inequality in the US.
Ringgold started making story quilts during the Civil Rights era, initially collaborating with her mother who was a seamstress.
Protest and activism are integral to Ringgold’s art. We liked her Harriet Tubman story quilt.
We also saw Luchita Hurtado’s I Lie I Die I Will Be Reborn exhibition. We didn’t know about this artist beforehand, but found her art very moving. This is a self portrait from 1968.
Hurtado was born in Venezuela in 1920. She travelled extensively in Mexico before settling in California in the 1950's. During the 1960’s she explored the boundaries between the self and the world, using her body as a frame.
This abstract piece is actually formed of cut strips of painted words. (Most of her pieces are untitled.)
Wanting to see our friend Claire, we took the train to Cambridge. Pete is in front of Newnham College’s entrance. Established in 1871, this college only started issuing degrees to women in 1948.
Newnham was the second women’s college to be established in Cambridge. Currently it has 370 undergraduates, 270 graduate students and 70 staff, so it's quite small.
It was great to spend the day with Claire (left) , who we met cycling in Laos in 2015. We had tea in the garden with her and her partner Emma, who is on the faculty at Newnham.
Emma went to St. John’s College in Cambridge and studied geography for both her undergraduate and PhD program. Now she is on the faculty at Newnham. She invited us to go punting using one of St. John’s punts.
It was a perfect way to spend the solstice, traveling along the River Cam and enjoying the views of the beautiful old architecture.
Emma is an expert punter and she took the first turn at punting (this means she captained the boat and used the long pole to push the boat along the river).
Pete was willing to try punting so he went to the stern of the punt and was instructed by Emma. He did great!
Claire brought champagne to enjoy as we punted along.
Then Claire took a turn punting while we sat back and enjoyed the sunshine.
Claire moved from Perth two years ago and bought a cute house. She's a lovely person and it was great to see her thriving in Cambridge.
We also visited Emma’s house, and admired how the back half of her home has been completely remodeled to open up onto her lovely garden.
Emma has six chickens, so she sent us back to London with fresh eggs.
We boiled them for breakfast the next day.
We stayed for a week at our friend Steve’s apartment in Greenwich. We took care of his plants.
While we watched his apartment, Steve was in Svalbard enjoying the midnight sun at the Arctic Circle.
We know Steve from several cycling adventures, first meeting him in 2013 in Burma. We brought him a San Francisco Biciamo jersey.
It was great to meet Steve’s partner Tim (left), a really good hearted person and together they are a very happy couple.
Claire came down from Cambridge and the five of us went out for dinner. (Thanks to Tim for taking this photo.)
The next day we walked around Greenwich with Steve and Tim. In the background was the Queen’s House. Designed and built in the 17th century, it was supposed to be a gift from King James I to his wife, Anne of Denmark, as an apology for swearing in front of her during a hunt in which she accidentally killed one of his favorite hunting dogs. But Queen Anne would never live in the house, as she died before it was completed.
We learned there was a tunnel under the Thames from Greenwich to the Isle of Dogs, so we went through it.
This was the view of Greenwich from the other side. Apparently the name Isle of Dogs comes from the period when it was the hunting grounds of the King and Queen and was actually an island (today it's a peninsula).
We visited the Tower Bridge.
From across the Thames we got a good view of the Tower of London.
It was fun to walk across Tower Bridge with all the tourists and red open-topped buses.
We climbed up the tower to see the exhibits on the building of the bridge. The views from the elevated walkways were great.
They had a photo of this Lego version of Tower Bridge. Unfortunately we couldn't find it for sale.
At the nearby Black Sheep Coffee cafe, their wall had an image of Tower Bridge.
While in Portland our friend Laura had told us that Buckingham Palace was having an exhibition of Leonardo da Vinci’s anatomy drawings. We arrived at the palace at same time as the changing of the guard, and it was swarming with tourists.
Kristina is in front of the Queen’s Gallery, where the exhibition was held.
The exhibition honored the 500th anniversary of da Vinci’s death. Through dissection and study he learned about all the muscles, ligaments and organs in the human body. He must have had a photographic memory, because he made all his drawings after the fact.
We learned from the audio guide that da Vinci was such a perfectionist that he refused to release his drawings as anatomy guides because he was never satisfied with the accuracy of the drawings nor the information he provided.
Our favorite vegan restaurant in London was Stem + Glory.
We went twice, both times for a late lunch and we practically had the place to ourselves.
They made different types of pickles, including fennel (left), onions and pineapple, and kimchi.
The eggplant appetizer was served over quinoa with mint and topped with cashew yogurt. It was fresh tasting.
Their jackfruit tacos were juicy and good. We liked the addition of spinach leaves between the filling and the blue corn tortillas.
We toured Dr. Samuel Johnson’s house. In the mid-18th century Johnson compiled one of the most influential English dictionaries. It was two volumes and full of funny anecdotes to explain the words.
He was a large man who seemed to have a big personality too.
We saw where Johnson kept his wigs. And they had wigs available for trying on. Doesn't Pete look smashing?
Kristina was going down the many flights of stairs.
Just a few meters from Dr. Johnson's house was this interesting vertical garden building. Pete managed to photograph it as an iconic black cab was driving past.
We also visited St. Paul's Cathedral, the second largest dome in the world.
To avoid paying the hefty entrance fee we went to a Mass that honored St. John the Baptist. We enjoyed the singing and the acoustics were fantastic.
We went to the Museum of London and spent most of our time in the ancient history section. We learned that the Romans conquered Britain, naming it Britannia and that London was the capital, named Londinium. Outside the museum were walls that date back to the Roman era, from the first to the early fifth centuries. These early fortifications remained in place for centuries and to this day they mark the historic core of London.
We took a day trip to Bath. We left from Paddington train station.
It was a comfortable 90 minutes on the train, which provided electricity and WIFI (although it was not very fast).
When we arrived we noticed the iconic red telephone booths had been turned into colorful planters in Bath.
We went to the Roman Baths and learned so much about their history. The settlement was called Aquae Sulis, a reference to both the natural hot springs and the Celtic goddess of wisdom and healing named Sulis. This is how the reconstructed main bathing pool looks today; It is about six meters below street level. During the time of the Romans the pool had a high roof, which would have held in the heat and prevented the algae from growing.
Pieces of the Roman temple to Minerva (who was similar to the Celtic goddess Sulis) were found during excavations, including an owl (on the right below the angel), which is a symbol of Minerva. The central figure was identified as Gorgon's head with snakes in his beard and hair, but we found a credible source that believes it may have been a sun god.
At the time of the Romans, this pool was not used for bathing, instead it was the sacred Sulis-Minerva pool where people would make offerings to the goddess or ask her to curse someone through inscribed lead tablets.
From the upper terrace of the Roman Baths we could see nearby Bath Abbey. Notice how the Roman-style statue at the baths almost appears to be part of the cathedral.
The church was founded in the 6th century but the building today dates to the 16th century.
The floor is made of flat grave stones called ledgerstones.
The King Edgar window shows him being crowned as the first king of England in 973. He was known as Edgar the Peaceful.
The fan vaulted ceiling was spectacular.
"Created in the 16th century by the king's master masons, the stone vaults form beautiful fan shapes to draw us up to God."
Here's a closer look.
After touring the church we took to the streets to see more of Bath.
This is the Pulteney Bridge and weir on the River Avon, a picturesque spot in Bath. The bridge was built in 1774. The city of Bath became a World Heritage Site in 1987 because of the Roman Baths and the 18th century Georgian architecture.
Next we went to the Royal Crescent, the first of a dozen curved blocks with stone facades designed by John Wood.
The Circus uses a similar concept as the crescents except it's a full circle of curved buildings. Inspired by the Roman Coliseum, the buildings are three stories above ground with columns in the facade.
The lower floors likely get nice light too, because there are subterranean patios with gardens in front of each building. This photo looks down into a patio.
Although the front facades are identical, apparently Wood did not provide designs for the back or interiors, leaving it to sub-contractors to build them as they chose.
We toured a restored Georgian garden, with its formal yet simple design.
Back in London we moved to an Airbnb in Hampstead for our final few days in London. It was a pretty posh neighborhood.
A number of the buildings had plaques explaining the historical significance of a resident, indicating the historical societies are pretty strong here.
On our last full day in London we went out for coffee and sweets in the morning.
Then continued on to Hampstead Heath, a huge public park filled with walking paths, small lakes and hills.
It was cool as we walked through the wooded sections, and Kristina was glad for her wool beanie.
Our last night in London, we decided to go to the Thames to see the evening lights of London. We started by crossing the Millennium Bridge and looked back at the view of St. Paul's Cathedral.
By happenstance we had learned about a project named Illuminated Rivers, which will light up to 15 bridges along the Thames. So far three bridges have lights.
The piece was conceived by the artist Leo Villareal, who was also responsible for lighting the Oakland Bay Bridge a few years ago. This is the Southwark Bridge.
Under the Southwark we could see the lights on the Blackfriars Railway Bridge. The lights were wonderful viewed from the bank of the Thames, but probably would be stunning from a boat.
This was our final view of London Bridge for this trip. Maybe we will have a chance to come back soon. All 15 bridges along the Thames are to be illuminated by the year 2022.
Next we head to Scotland to visit friends and do a wee bit of cycling.
