Saturday, 6 June 2016, London
We strolled in the sunshine to the end of the street and
into the British Museum. WOW. A new ,standard has been set and the Arc de Triomphe
and Eiffel Tower are second by the barest of margins. A photo cannot get the
scale and impact of walking into the courtyard and then through the doors and
enormous foyer into the clear glass, covered clean white Great Court.
We started with the mystery of the Rosetta Stone(196 BC) upon
which is carved a translation of a passage of hieroglyphics into Ancient Greek
and another Egyptian script (this carved stone provided the basis for
deciphering hieroglyphics when it was discovered almost 2000 years later).
We then got an idea of the massive scale of
the statues and temples in ancient Egypt (refer granite fist at the end of a 4
metre arm),
followed by the incredible flowing series of Greek sculptures
(refer Elgin Marbles) and the blow by blow depiction of a fight between a
soldier and centaur – like a cartoon script but each blow is relief carved onto
giant TV screen sized slabs of marble) - not to mention a perfectly diminutive Aphrodite
bathing, Apollo looking very athletic, Dionysus, Venus and Hercules all
looking as well as they did many thousands of years ago.
We were staggered by
the 11 metre Red Indian Totem poles,
fascinated by the death cults of the
Aztecs,
absorbed the Celtic and Anglo-Saxon,Roman and early European craft work
and finally delighted in
a few pieces of current culture which have made the collection like the Grayson
Perry Vase and Lucien Freud print.
All this in 2.5hrs at a leisurely pace and probably
covered maybe a bit less than a quarter of the current exhibition space and it
was FREE! 101 % WOW factor.
Totally happy we ambled to the Russell Square underground
and made our way to our next engagement with Charli from EATWALKEATTALK touring
company for the Gin Tour Mary had fortuitously discovered just before we left
Melbourne. The tour included a Swiss couple Bruno and Corinna (who were good
company) in an area around Farringdon. This area covers one square mile and is
a city within a city with its own police force and mayor. The tour is highly
recommended, especially if you want to find places with character. The first
stop was the Fox and Anchor a dark wooden pub from the 1800’s with its own little
eating & drinking booths where we enjoyed a new gin, ”Half- Hitch” with a
pork pie.
Then to J&A Café run by 2 Irish sisters where we enjoyed Irish
produce: a spicy “Sip-Smith” gin with a cheese and meat platter and home-made
brown soda bread, then to the Zetter Townhouse with a range of exotic gin
drinks mixed with their strange home-made cordials all in a lovely-cosy-kooky
setting, surrounded by comfortable large lounge chairs and leather couches,
paintings, drawings, stuffed animals and endless paraphernalia all tastefully
arranged.
To finally the Belgian gin house where we enjoyed their fruit
genevers with chocolate fondue. After about 3 hours we farewelled Bruno and Corinna
and returned to the Zetter Townhouse which had really caught our fancy and
ordered one more weird concoction.
After which we merrily wended our way to the tube and found
ourselves at the Southwark Cathedral just on starting time (7:30PM) to sit
quietly and peacefully whilst listening to the London Concertante (6 on strings
with one on piano) perform: Spring and Summer from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons,
along with music by Elgar, Holst, Mozart and Piazzolla in beautiful
surroundings which stretch back to 1106. At intermission we visited the
memorial tomb and window to William Shakespeare and tried to identify
Shakespeare’s plays by the characters in the stained glass window, we got Romeo
and Juliet, King Lear, The Tempest……..
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