British Musuem Day.

British Museum Day
XXIII BLOG Toto Travels
2 June, Thursday

The bedroom was a bit warm last night, but this morning it is cooler and we slept well at 17 Homestead Road. Fiona fixes a simple breakfast that is mostly toast and fruit and cereal. It works just fine. There was a young couple from southern France at breakfast this morning. Fiona lived in France for a few years, so her French is pretty good, I think. She says it is getting “rusty” but she can make it work. The young man was very friendly and pretty chatty and asked about places to go. His English was quite good. His companion appeared to not speak English, but I suspect she understood what we were saying, but was not comfortable trying to speak English.

Mike had taken our laundry to be done yesterday. He retrieved our laundry while I finished getting ready for the day. On the way down to breakfast I slipped on the carpeted steps and bounced down two stairs on my bottom. I was fine, just sat a few moments to be sure nothing was wrong, but Mike freaked out and wanted to escort me down the stairs, which really irritated me. Oh well, I should be grateful that he is so concerned about me I suppose.

Today is off to Central London with the British Museum as our primary stop. I asked Mike about the London Eye, which I thought he would really like, but he has no desire to do that, so we skipped it.

We took the “fast” way, the Tube from Parsons Green on the District Line, changing at Earl’s Court to the Piccadilly Line to Holborn, near British Museum. Consulting our maps like good little tourists and found our way to the British Museum, after a few stops in shops along the way.
The British Museum is amazing. Mike and I decided to meet in a couple of hours, knowing that our interests and our pace would be different. I had my little guide book and a Rick Steves Audio Guide that I wanted to follow, so off I went. I have read this is the greatest history of civilization on the planet. I started (after I found it – entering the museum was already overwhelming ) with the Rosetta Stone. It was easy to find IF you were looking for the crowd. After making about four passes in that direction over our time in the museum, I gave up getting a long look at the Rosetta Stone, it was always crowded.

Wandering past Egyptian artifacts, mummies, and on to the Assyrian Empire and the amazing artifacts in that area, dating from 9th century B.C. was a living example of the ancient history. Next came the most “modern” of the ancient civilizations, the Greeks. The Elgin Marbles from the Greek Parthenon are absolutely incredible! Apparently there has been much debate over where these historic items should reside. As I look through a sampling of the British Museum offerings, I have to think it is amazing to have such a representative sample of the history of civilization in a place such as the British Museum.

From my understanding, the British position is that those artifacts were obtained honestly (not sure what that means) and that the artifacts are well protected in the British Museum. Many of those various artifacts, if returned to the site of their recovery, could well be destroyed by unrest and revolution. That seems to be a good point, although I can see the logic of the people of Egypt, Greece, etc.

We made a little rest stop at the café in the British Museum for a drink and a bag of chips, then on to Covent Garden and Trafalgar Square. I really wanted to share those places with Mike. In retrospect, that was probably not the best of my ideas since he was so overwhelmed by all the people in the huge city of London. Sadly, I was still on a mission to show him wonderful London, and it was much too late when I finally realized that he just could not appreciate London when it was such a crowded mass of humanity.

As we left the British Museum, there were cabs out on the street, which seemed like a great idea for our transport to Covent Garden. It let us experience the great Black Cab experience in London and dropped us at Covent Garden without the extra blocks of a tube ride and walk. We were both pretty tired of walking at this point. The cabby was , of course, chatty and a fund of information so the ride was a brilliant success. I wanted to show Mike around Covent Garden a bit, but he was hungry and intent on lunch, so we just walked through the edge and started off in the general direction of Trafalgar Square looking for a pub for lunch.

Tucked in a street between Covent Garden and Trafalgar Square we had a delicious lunch at The Angel and Crown pub. No ale for lunch – too hot and too far to wander and walk this afternoon. The Thames seemed to be the place to be for Mike. I hauled him through Trafalgar Square with visions of going to the National Gallery – uhhh wrong plan. Way too many people milled around the central square in London, definitely hot and crowded. So we opted to take another river taxi ride out as far east on the Thames as we could go.

Using our Oyster Card, we bought tickets all the way out to the O2 concert venue which is past Greenwich. The river taxi was not crowded and we cruised along looking at the sites in the cool river breeze. Past the Tower of London there are not any spectacular sites until Greenwich which is where most of the people departed. Greenwich looks like a really neat place to explore and spend some time, but it was later afternoon by this time as so we kept going east to the O2 pavilion. From there you could see in the distance parts of the Thames Barriers which have been built to help keep London from flooding in the event of catastrophic events. Mike would have enjoyed going further east on the Thames, but the river taxi did a turn-around at the O2 and we headed back west to central London.

Getting on the tube we rode to Knightsbridge and walked to Harrod’s to do some shopping for the grandkids - as if we did not already have them enough touristy junk. A huge store sitting on four acres it is seven stories of merchandise including a food court with varied and exotic foods. We asked where the stuffed animals and toys were located – fourth floor. Baby and kids clothing, and winding around we found the stuffed animals, about 4 rooms of them. While we were there, we took in the touristy area and also visited the ATM so we could pay our BnB hostess in cash. It was fun looking around the toy area. We did not spend a bunch of time there, but those inclined to browse could easily spend most of a day in Harrods. I had read about the Egyptian themed food court and the memorial to Princess Dianna and Dodi Fayed, so I prevailed upon Mike to endure a bit more of Harrods. He was really a good sport about it and accompanied me down to the bottom floor to check it out.

The memorial was at the bottom of the escalator and was fairly well packed with people, mostly young men that appeared to be of Arab descent. All were taking photos, of course I took a few photos also.

Abandoning Harrods, we took our purchases and took the Underground back to Parsons Green, changing at Earl’s Court again.

The White Horse, aka The Sloaney Pony, was our pick for a light dinner and a pint. The place was pretty busy, but most of the folks were at the bar or outside, so we tucked into a table and had a bite to eat. I again went to the bar since my hearing is better in a noisy place. The barman, as always, was very helpful selecting a fairly mild ale. Now I cannot remember the name of it, but Mike had the milder ale and I decided on a Guinness. Ahhhh, great choices for a mellowing evening.

When we left to walk back to Fiona’s BnB, the pub was swarming with young people. It was an absolute mob outside the pub that spilled onto the sidewalk. Back to our little room, I read and played with my iPad and Mike tucked in.