One Week + One Day.

An early breakfast and I was off to London before the crowds. I headed for the Faraday Museum in Albemarle Street. He was responsible for a lot of the early work in electromagnetism and electrochemistry. It was a sort of geeky choice partly designed to avoid the crowds. (http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/faraday_michael.shtml) There were no crowds. It was closed!! The building is being refurbished. Disappointing. What now? I wandered through Piccadilly and chanced upon Burlington House and the Royal Academy of Arts. This featured a permanent exhibition of paintings by Reynolds, Turner, Gainsborough, and many others. There was also a showing of paintings from the collection of an American Paul Mellon. This guy must have been wealthy as the exhibition featured works from Stubbs, Turner, Constable, Blake, Gainsborough and others. I was a touch resentful that this rich American had made of with such a treasure trove of English paintings. However his collection is now housed in the Yale Centre for British Art so I'll forgive him. The paintings on show here were magnificent, a large Turner the highlight for me. (http://www.royalacademy.org.uk/exhibitions/mellon/)
I decided to walk a while and stumbled upon St James' church Picadilly. Designed by Christopher Wren it had a simplicity of design and decoration that appealed. Outside in the churchyard was a market selling the usual tat sold in markets the world over.
Over to Lambeth and the Imperial War Museum.The main ground floor area is filled with planes tanks and other military hardware. Having just read a book about the America/Russia space race I was interested to see an example of a V2 rocket with which Hitler terrorised southern England at the end of the war and which was the forerunner of the bigger rockets that took men to the moon. The real gems of this museum are the separate exhibitions around the central area: paintings of conflict in the middle east; a display of Victoria and George Cross winners with photographs and stories; an exhibition in conjunction with the ITV production "My Boy Jack" about Rudyard Kipling's son killed in WWI; and the harrowing Holocaust exhibition.
A long pre-lunch walk took me to the river at Lambeth Bridge and then along the river to Dogget's pub for a pint and some sausages and mash. Continuing along the river I found the Bankside Gallery showing a large collection of water colour paintings and prints, all for sale. The gallery is the home of the Royal Watercolour Society and the Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers. I would happily have bought a number of the works on display had I the money.
By this stage I was weary so headed home but not before calling in to St Pancras railway station. It is the set off point for the Eurostar and had recently undergone refurbishment. It is a magnificent example of Victorian architecture with the main concourse housed under a huge iron arched structure (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/main.jhtml?xml=/travel/2007/11/07/etpanoramic107.xml) There is a life size bronze statue of John Betjeman, himself a great advocate of Victorian architecture. There is also a huge statue of two young people kissing, presumably goodbye or possibly hello, either way appropriate for this magnificent terminus.
Henry and Viola were back from their Polish holiday when I arrived home and so we all went out down the street for a burger.