We started the day with the British Museum. It holds over 6 million items that record human history. Everything has been stored or found by excavation. Here is the actual Rosetta Stone, found by Napolean's soldiers in 1799. It is covered in hieroglyphic writing as well as two other languages which allowed translation for the first time.
There are other items from 2000 years BC from Egypt, including this cat mummy that looks a lot like our Sinbad.
There was so much detail in that museum we felt a bit overloaded with information.
Next stop was a walk through Covent Gardens, a bit tacky like Auckland's Victoria Park Market but at 3 times the price.
Right by Covent Gardens was the London Transport Museum, with interesting exhibits of the first trams, omnibuses, steam underground and electric trains. Can you imagine - underground steam trains!
We had a little time left so decided to make a start at the National Gallery on Trafalgar Square. We had certainly left the best to last. We limited ourselves to 18th-20th Century. It was such a thrill to see Monet, Renoir, van Gogh, Constable, Gainsborough, Turner and others - wonderful works that we have only seen before in books or on calendars.
Our last event of the day was dinner with Helen & Hugh McCallum at 'The Blackbird' inn in Earls Court. Helen is distantly related to Doug, sharing the same gt-gt-gt-gt-grandfather on the Jater side. We had lunch with them in 2007 in 'The Victoria' inn in Byfleet. It was good to catch up.
We will return on Friday to explore the other 3 sections.
1 comment:
That would be great seeing those famous paintings.
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