September 11 and 12 - Exploring London

   Sept 11

The bulk of our day was spent at the National Portrait Gallery and the National Gallery by Trafalgar Square. We took the tube and two busses to get there and a bus and the tube back home.  The weather finally broke. It was still hot, but not as hot and there was a good deal of cloud cover.

Photo of Gandhi

                                Painting of the Bronte sisters painted by their 17 year old brother, Branwell, who painted himself out of the painting. This portrait was discovered years later, folded on top of a cupboard in Ireland. The ghostly picture of Branwell has been emerging over the years.

    The Portrait Gallery had some very interesting exhibits about women suffragists and artists as well as interesting and disturbing histories about colonialism in India as well as in Jamaica. 

The photo below is of an enslaved woman who was captured at age 5 and who became a favorite of Queen Victoria.     

      We took a break and wandered around the Leicester Square and Covent Garden area looking for a restaurant recommended by Jecca and family. Eventually we found a Wagamama by Covent Garden and we both had very nice ramen meals.

     

After that, we walked back to Trafalgar Square which had become much busier in the interim and we went into the National Gallery. As we had already seen a lot of art, we concentrated on the Impressionist sections which were great, but too crowded.

     We made our way back to Ladbroke Grove by a little bit of a round about route, but figured it out, having a nice iced coffee midway.

    Sept 12

Today we took a bus (52) to Kensington by Kensington Gardens and then walked to the Victoria and Albert Museum. The weather was cloudy and cooler than it has been any day so far. (73 degrees, but still humid.) We wandered around the museum rather randomly. 

The museum has casts of famous statues like Michelangelo's David that are true to size. At first we sort of thought, "why see replicas?" But, the longer we were there, the more we appreciated them. They are exact and most people will never see the original ones. And, the process to duplicate huge objects like Trajan's column is impressive in itself.

    We had iced coffee in the lovely tea room. Even the bathrooms were ornate and gorgeous!

    We wandered through the Rodin section and other sculptures as well. Mark took a photo of. Barbara next to a bust of Einstein taken shortly after he escaped Nazi Germany, both looking sad and concerned. Below that is the Chihuly sculpture in the dome.

     From there, we took the underground back to Ladbroke Grove and had a late lunch/early dinner in "our" neighborhood at a terrific Turkish restaurant, Fez Mangal. What a pick! We had 4 starters which were excellent. We want to learn to make them - the tabboulah especially. Mark had a chicken shish, which was a skewer of chicken with picked cabbage, a hot pepper, roasted tomato and carrots. Barbara had a yogurt chicken shish which was more stew like with a marinara and yogurt sauce. Both were delicious and we took home more than we ate! Later, we took a bus to the big Sainsbury's and got a few things including decaffeinated coffee.