A quick list of what I've been up to

It's taking some time to create blog posts on everything I've been up to in London, so for the interim here's a list of what I've seen and done since May 1:

1. Academy of St Martin-In-the-Fields (chamber music concert)
2. Albert Memorial
3. Battersea Park
4. British Museum
5. Brompton Cemetery
6. Clink Jail Museum
7. Courtald Gallery
8. Hampton Court Palace
9. Harrod’s
10. Hyde Park
11. John Soane's Museum
12. Kensington Gardens
13. Kensington Palace
14. Kew Gardens
15. Kew Palace
16. London Eye
17. London Sea Life Aquarium
18. London Stone
19. London Zoo
20. London Symphony Orchestra
21. The Monument
22. Museum of London
23. National Gallery
24. National Maritime Museum/Queen's House
25. National Portrait Gallery
26. Natural History Museum
27. Oxford St (shopping)
28. Regent Park
29. Royal Observatory at Greenwich
30. Russell Square
31. Saatchi Gallery
32. Savoy Hotel
33. Science Museum
34. Sloane Square
35. Somerset House
36. St James' Park
37. St Paul's Cathedral
38. Tate Britain
39. Tate Modern
40. Temple of Mithras
41. Thames Barrier
42. Tower of London
43. Trafalgar Square
44. Victoria & Albert Museum
45. Wallace Collection

Harrod's

A temple to shopping, Harrod’s is a spectacle of excess.  The employees are better-dressed than most of the customers.  The food court alone is worth the visit.  Most memorable (to me) is the Egyptian Escalator Hall, which is decorated as if you were inside an Egyptian tomb as you go up and down the escalators. You know those cutaway diagrams of the pyramids that show the long diagonal tunnels?  Clearly they were for escalators, where you would stand on a log, and a dozen slaves would roll you up the tunnel.

At the very bottom of the Egyptian escalator is the “Dodi and Diana” memorial, put there because the previous owner of Harrah’s is the father of Dodi Al-Fayed, Diana’s last ‘companion,’  I tried to take a picture of this, but my camera has a special chip that prevents it from taking pictures of The Most Tasteless Things in the World. 

Footnote:  In the UK, it is sufficient to refer to "Diana" and everyone knows who you are talking about.  The other acceptable reference is "Diana, Princess of Wales"; the name"Princess Diana" is never used, because you can only have the title Prince or Princess in front of your name if you are born with it (as a direct descendent of a monarch), or if it is conferred upon you by the monarch.  They take their titles very seriously here.

Saint Paul's Cathedral

I have always been a little creeped out by churches as tourist attractions.  They are sacred places, after all, and I’m uncomfortable barging into someone else’s house of worship – even more so when there’s an entry fee.  Also, since you are usually not allowed to take pictures inside a church, it makes for a text-heavy blog posting.  That said, there is no church in the US that even comes close to the majesty of St. Paul’s.  I’ll have to go back for a tour, but here are my first impressions. 

St Paul’s remains one of the dominant and iconic features of the London skyline, and I think if anyone dared proposing to build a skyscraper between St Paul’s and the Thames they would be harmed, along with their family.  Of course the dome is the star attraction, although architects are quick to point out that it is not a single dome, but in fact three nested domes, the middle one being cone-shaped.  Up 259 steps (a little more navigable than those in The Monument) gets you to the Whispering Gallery, an interior gallery with a good view of the apse (or maybe it’s the nave), and the fun feature that if someone stands directly opposite you in the dome gallery, you can hear them speaking even in a whisper.  Up another 119 steps, these a little more treacherous, and you reach the Stone Gallery, which is outdoors.  It’s a wide deck, with a high stone railing, offering magnificent views of the city. 
Looking south-west, you can see the London Eye

 To the east, the top of The Monument sticks its golden flame up from the surrounding buildings.

Another 152 steps (that’s a total of 528)  take you up to the Golden Gallery, another, much smaller outdoor deck.  I am not afraid of heights, but these steps, largely iron spiral staircases and gangways, were truly nerve-wracking, and would never pass a safety inspection in the US.  The final flight of steps take you through a passage no more than three feet wide and five feet high (felt like one of those mysterious passages in the pyramids).  Once on the Golden Gallery, your footroom is at most three feet wide, and in some places just six inches, and the stone railing barely comes up to your waist.  The wind is such that you need to lean against the wall to brace yourself, and any pictures you try to take betray the shakiness of your hands due to the wind (and the after-effects of those stairs).  Kudos to the guy in front of me going down, who did the whole trip carrying a small child.


Notice the same view of the south-west, how much higher you are relative to the Stone Gallery.

  To the east, construction proceeds on The Shard, which, when finished, will be the tallest building in the country.

 Looking south to the Millennium footbridge and, across the Thames, the Tate Modern (an art museum built in an old power station).

 In the distance, Tower Bridge crosses the Thames, and to it's left, the distinctive gold-topped white shaft of The Monument.

  Great zoom feature on my camera

At ground level, the church is full of statues, mostly of people I have never heard of.  Curiously, most are not of religious figures (saints, martyrs).  Really, statues everywhere.  Below the main floor is the Crypt, where many famous (dead) people are buried, including Lord Nelson and the Duke of Wellington, in two of the largest burial monuments I have ever seen.  There is a bust of Churchill in the crypt, though he is not buried here.  There’s also a cafe and gift shop. 

In the gardens around the church are some interesting sculptures, include one of St Thomas Becket, though he was not killed at St. Paul's, he was killed at Canterbury Cathedral.

TOURIST WARNING:  Do NOT visit St. Paul’s and The Monument one right after the other, as I did.  That’s about 1,700 steps up and down.

The Monument

Seriously, it’s called “The Monument,” as if it were the only one in a city where there are monuments than Starbucks.  Erected to commemorate the Great Fire of 1666 (you can’t live in London for very long without understanding  that the Fire of 1666 is probably the single most significant event in the city’s history), it’s a hollow column.  It’s located on an obscure side street, not far from where the fire is thought to have started.  I probably passed the street four or five times before I noticed The Monument.  It was designed, like seemingly every building from the period, by Christopher Wren. 

 For £3, you get the privilege of climbing 311 perilous spiral steps to the top.  You can see in the sides of the column slot windows for the staircase.  You share the steps with the people going the other direction, so periodically you need to step to one side to let them pass.  Inevitably there is an 8-year old trying to count each of the steps, but they typically give up around eleventy-three.  

 Once up top, you have a panoramic view of the city, obscured somewhat by the chicken-wire cage around the viewing deck (presumably not part of Wren’s design).  Be prepared for treacherous winds. 

 Atop the column is a brass sculpture representing flames.  Legend has it, before the wire cage was put up, people who jumped from the top didn’t hit the pavement, but rather bounced off the large pedestal at the base (ouch).  

When you get back down to the bottom of the steps, a nice man hands you a certificate acknowledging that you have made the journey up and down, likely never to repeat the feat.

The Temple of Mithras

Another relic of Roman “Londinium,” this foundation of a temple was dug up in another part of the city, and today sits between a construction site and a car park (as does pretty much everything in London these days).  As temples go, this one looks pretty small, no more than 30 feet long and 10 feet wide – more like the Carport of Mithras.  Some garbage littered the site, though not so much that it leaves the impression that the Temple gets regular attention (“Friends of the Temple of Mithras” I might suppose, membership £35).  Could possibly be a venue for Olympic table tennis.  Admission is free.

The London Stone

An object of some legend and much mystery, the London Stone is one of the most ancient objects associated with London as a city.  Thought perhaps to be a distance marker for a Roman road for the ancient settlement of Londinium, or even the place from which all distances in Britannia were measured, the greenish rock, shaped like a Flintstones toaster, sits almost unnoticed in the front wall of 105 Cannon Street (I think it’s a bank). 

There is a small plaque, an iron grating, and behind a piece of glass, the Stone, illuminated and with a mirror behind it.  The inscription on the plaque reads:  “This is a fragment of the original piece of limestone once securely fixed in the ground now fronting Cannon Street Station.  Removed in 1742 to the north side of the street, in 1798 it was built into the south wall of the Church of St, Swithun London Stone which stood here until demolished in 1962.  Its origin and purpose are unknown but in 1188 there was a reference to Henry, son of Eylwin de Londonstane, subsequently Lord Mayor of London.” 

It is a curiously inconspicuous presentation for a city that otherwise celebrates its past with triumphal flair.  Handicap accessible.  Allow for 3 – 4 minutes.  There is no gift shop.

My London Flat

27 Fernshaw Road, Flat D, London, SW10 0TG

My flat is in Chelsea (Londoners say “ooooh, very nice”).  The borough of Chelsea and Kensington is noted for having the highest housing prices in the UK, although I found a nice flat for a reasonable (for London) rent in the western edge of the borough -- I call it the Slums of Chelsea, because the cars parked on my street are all BMWs and Mercedes, whereas five blocks to the east, the cars are all Bentleys and Maseratis.  The flat is the top floor of a “terraced house.”  See the pics for the layout, some of the rooms, and the view.  You come in the front door, go up a flight of steps to the kitchen, and up another flight of steps to the bedroom, bath, and “reception room.”  Lots of big windows, and good cross-ventilation.   Also, lots of closet space for a London flat.  The kitchen is especially nice, with a full-sized fridge/freezer (pretty rare), and shiny new appliances (for which there were no instruction manuals, so I had to go online and print all of those out).  Note the clothes washer/dryer in the kitchen, because, well, that's where they put them.

FYI, the indoor pictures are from the estate agent (that’s British for “realtor”) before I occupied the place.  There’s no pic of the bedroom, because the pic from the estate agent includes in the frame a piece of art on the wall that, well, just isn’t to my taste and not suitable for posting to a blog like this.

Chelsea is great for shopping, dining, and all of that stuff.  Within a 15-minute walk, I have a drycleaner, three grocery stores (markets), three drug stores (chemists), two post offices (Royal Mail), and probably 30 restaurants.  More Chelsea pics and stories to come.

27 Fernshaw is the last house at the end of the row.

This is looking up the east side of the street:


These are the houses on the other side of the street:

Here's the floorplan:

Here's the reception room (that's a sofa bed, btw):


Here's the bathroom.  Pictures of bathrooms never really capture their grandeur:

The view from the reception room: