Saturday -- London -- the last day

[klwilliams]

Since this was our last day, we tried to do everything we hadn't done yet. Our first stop was Westminster Abbey for an actual tour. We got there in good time, to find a very long line to get in. It moved quickly enough, though. This, unlike York Minster or even Canterbury Cathedral, had an air of a monument rather than a living church, despite my having been to services the weekend before. Everybody who was anybody is buried there -- among them Elizabeth I, Mary I, and Mary Queen of Scots -- and most of the chapels are filled with tombs. Even Bulwer-Lytton is buried there (though not in the Poet's Corner). The tombs themselves have carvings of the inhabitants on top of them, and many of them have animals carved at their feet. acanthusleaf tells me these are indicative of the deceased nature -- a dog at their feet means faithfulness, for example (and if I remember that right). There were lots of dogs, but there were also quite a few other animals, including lions, a boar, a hedgehog, a couple of deer, a mailed fist (at the feet of a woman, in fact), a goat, and a horse (though one of the deer may have been a horse, too).

Afterwards we found a restaurant a couple of blocks away, on the second floor (so I had a view of the Abbey during lunch), and had a nice lunch, though as usual the service was slow.

The day was very sunny and warm, as usually happens when I travel, so I talked L into walking to Marble Arch with me. Our route took us past the Horse Guards, though only one was on duty, and wasn't mounted, through St. James's park, which had daffodils blooming everywhere and swans in the lake, past Buckingham Palace, past Nelson's (?) Monument, and through part of Hyde Park. It turns out that it was a day of worldwide protest against war, so their was an anti-war protest march going on quite near us, and all the streets on our route were closed off and empty of traffic. There were a lot of police at Nelson's Monument, sitting in police cars and what looked like police transport cars. At Hyde Park we walked over close enough to see the protesters, who were enthusiastic and peaceful.

From there we took the Underground to the British Library, in its new home a couple of blocks from the British Museum and a couple of blocks from our hotel. There we did an incredibly fast tour of their treasures room, seeing the Luttrell Psalter, the Saxon Chronicle, the Magna Carta (plus a couple of subsequent variations), and quite a few other amazing historical books and documents. It was scribe-geek heaven. We were very restrained in the bookstore afterwards, since we were getting very close to the time we were supposed to meet mevennen.

We scurried back to our hotel and met up with mevennen only a few minutes late, and went into a pub a block away that advertised internet service and food. Alas, it had neither, so we found a nice Italian restaurant down the street that had very good food, and very good desserts. Then, using our native guide's excellent pub-sighting skills, we found a very nice pub, where we sat around some more and talked. (Yes, I really know how to be exciting on a Saturday night in London. I hope we weren't too boring.) Then we went back to our hotel room, where I made mevennen make her own coffee. I would have been an even worse hostess had I made the coffee for her, since my coffee-making skills are so bad, I scare tough hard-bitten coffee drinkers to tears. I for one had a wonderful evening, and we saw mevennen off to her train, where she had only a few adventures on her way home.

I packed, went to bed, and the next day we had a fairly uneventful flight home.

Comments

[aastg.livejournal.com]

LE SIGH...LE ENVY.

I would give parts of my body, and I do have a couple of good bits left, to see those three manuscripts. Too bad British Airways will only take cash. Oh well, "next year, in London"....

[klwilliams.livejournal.com]

We also saw the Lindisfarne gospels and quite a few breviaries. The lighting was really dim, so it was a little hard to see. They're making their collection available digitally, too, though as you know that's not nearly so useful for seeing how they really did it.

[mevennen.livejournal.com]

Karen, what was the name of that shop where you got the manuscript supplies?

[klwilliams.livejournal.com]

L. Cornelissen and Son. Their shop is only a block or so from the British Museum on Great Russell St., and they're online at http://www.cornelissen.com/index1.asp?ver=ie.

[mevennen.livejournal.com]

Aha! Thank you.

[cvirtue.livejournal.com]

acanthusleaf tells me these are indicative of the deceased nature -- a dog at their feet means faithfulness,

You never see bad stuff though. A snake. A leech. A rabbit, for someone with 30 kids....

[klwilliams.livejournal.com]

I wondered about the woman with the mailed fist. Was that a good attribute or a bad one?

[mevennen.livejournal.com]

I imagine she was well 'ard, whatever it attributes!