BOB AND SHARON HAVE A CAPITAL TIME

Day 1 Hyde Park and Joe

Sharon had secretly arranged an early trip away for Bob's 65th birthday, which was still
 some way off, so it was off to London first thing on the 24th April. Indeed, to be honest it was before first thing really. We parked the car in the long stay park and took the early morning flight to Gatwick. From there it was the Gatwick Express to Victoria and then the tube to Kensington. We had our breakfast at Bill’s which was just fine and much needed by then. Sharon gave Bob a card with tickets to see Joe Bonamassa at the Albert Hall that night, and he was really chuffed at that. 

We went to our hotel, left our luggage in their care and then walked back to the Albert Hall to check out how long it might take to get there and to get the lay of the land.

Bob, almost happily, accepted the adulation of the screaming fans.

Once we had sussed things out, we decided to walk through Hyde Park. It is so much bigger than we imagined and we ended up spending the bulk of the day there. There was a huge amount to see. The lakes and wildfowl were amazing as was the Diana Memorial Fountain, the Italian Gardens and just the general ambience of the place.

We started off looking round the Albert Memorial.

From the park, you get an amazing framed view of the London Eye and the Shard.

We walked round to the Diana Memorial Fountain, which was bigger and nicer than we might have expected.

From there we walked round The Serpentine lake, which was home to an astonishing range of birds, some of which were only just awake.

While others were a bit more alert.

It was beginning to warm up, which was nice.

It is not often you see a Heron on a roof.

An Egyptian Goose and goslings.

The Park was bought by Henry VIII in 1536 in which  to hunt deer. It was opened to the public as long ago as 1637 by Charles I. The Serpentine Lake was created in the 1730's for Queen Caroline. The Lido, near Diana's fountain, was opened for public swimming in the 1930's. Although there were plenty of people about it did not feel too busy.

We took a little side trip into the Sackler Gallery, where there was an exhibition about plants that involved looking at what were called sigils using an iPad which then opened up more images and slogans. It was a bit weird.

We walked around The Long Water, heading towards The Italian Garden. This took us past this Gateway sculpture by Henry Moore. It frames a view of Kensington Palace.

There are a lot of Ring Necked Parakeets about.

By the time we got to the Italian Garden, it was getting really quite warm, so we sat down for a while and just enjoyed the garden.

From here it is not too far to Kensington Palace, which was also in the direction of our hotel. The route brought us to the Princess Diana Memorial Garden, which really was quite beautiful. It is a sunken garden, surrounded by a tunnel of greenery, which had little outlooks cut through it so that you could view the flowers. The flowers at this time were mainly tulips sitting proudly above a sea of pink and blue Gypsophila, to quite stunning effect. 

You also get some nice views of Kensington Palace, which I have to say, is not the most handsome of buildings.

By now we were in dire need of a cup of tea, so we popped in and had one, along with a very nice apple cake. It was a little pricey, but the cake was good.

We walked on round the Palace, which has some very highly decorated gates and a slightly more harmonious architectural elevation.

It is not very far from here to the hotel, where we checked in and got our luggage to the room. All was fine with that - the bed was huge and everything else was as you might expect in any hotel room.

After getting unpacked, showered and rested, it was time to go to the Albert Hall. Sharon had arranged dinner at Verdi, the Italian restaurant within the Albert Hall building. It was busy with a lot of people about the same age as us, although some clearly did not recognise that very long grey hair and T-shirts were not the best look for middle aged men.

We had a nice salad to start and then we both had one of the best Arrabbiata pasta dishes we have ever eaten. Very good indeed. Being in the building, meant we could leave by a side door straight into the arena. We went to the bar, got a gin and tonic and then settled into our seats to watch the show.

It was magnificent and Bob really enjoyed it all. Sharon prefers the quieter numbers and argued that the sound was actually too loud and turned out to be better with earplugs! Whatever, we did have a good time and walked back to the hotel happy, but tired after a very long day.

Day 2 Brick Lane

Thursday was a reasonable enough day and we had a very nice breakfast at the Muffin Man,a cafe very close to the hotel.

We were going to go to Brick Lane and Shoreditch in search of something a bit different. We were not disappointed. Brick Lane is home to a lot of ethnic minorities, who have imported and implanted their culture which is vibrant, colourful and completely unlike anything we are used to. We liked it a lot.

First we had to find it. We took a wrong turning, but that meant we got to see this rather fine sculpture of running horses.

We turned back and found our way to the bottom of Brick Lane. Bob knew he was going to like this place when he saw the sign in the shop window. No-one is more beer curious than him. However, it was a trifle early even for him to satisfy his curiosity.

This part of London is known for a number of things, including street art. This is just a selection of what can be seen on every corner and down little lanes.

Whilst it is home to a diverse community now, it clearly was not always so. I believed this to be the old sign for a butcher's shop, long gone. However, that was not the case and I should have known better being beer curious.

It actually marks the location of an old pub called the Jolly Butchers. It was one of many owned by the brewery Truman, Hanbury and Buxton. Theirs is a very interesting tale.

Joseph Truman worked in a brew house at Brick Lane and took it over in the 1680's, giving his name to the original Truman's brewery. It became very successful, partly due to Royal patronage. Apparently, when the Duchess of Brunswick was born in 1737, the Prince of Wales set up a large bonfire at Carlton House to celebrate the event and he ordered his household brewery to supply 4 barrels of beer for the public. The beer was pronounced inferior and a degree of unrest followed. The Prince ordered the celebration to be repeated the next night, but with beer from Truman's brewery. The event was a huge success.

Sampson Hanbury took over the brewery in 1788 and increased its success, particularly through improvements in efficiency and huge expansion of the brewing of Porter. Hanbury's nephew Thomas Buxton joined the firm in 1808 and he later became a reforming MP. He provided education for his workers and aided Wilberforce in the abolition of the slave trade. However, from a brewing point of view he continued the success of the company, buying out a Burton brewery so that he could sell Pale Ale, which he could not brew in London due to differences in water quality. This acquisition of the Burton brewery in 1873 made Trumans the largest brewer in the world. However, by the end of the 20th Century, the company could not compete with bigger competitors nor could they cope with the changes in the market such as the enormous expansion of lager and keg beers. Ultimately they were bought over by Grand Metropolitan in 1971 and after some changes, the brewery was shut in 1989.

A business that is booming and famous in Brick Lane is Beigel Bake. This is a 24 hour 7 day a week bakery, specialising in bagels. It is legendary and we both had a salt beef and mustard bagel for lunch and we could tell why it so famous. Yummy.

 There are numerous curry houses and other eastern restaurants in Brick Lane, but there are also little shops selling, for example, luscious looking ice cream. 

Or chocolate. Goodness, but this chocolate shop was heavenly. The smell was too good to pass, so we went in. There were some samples, so we tried them and ended up buying some. It was divine, but not cheap.

We were getting a bit weary by now so we took a tube to Holborn, where we went to visit Sicilian Avenue, which was supposed to be a very smart shopping street with fine buildings. Well it was all of that, but it was a very short street! Bob was getting a bit thirsty and more weary, so we stopped at the Holborn Whippet where he managed to drink a couple of pints of cool refreshing beer.

The short, but probably prohibitively expensive shops in Sicilian Avenue.

We didn't even browse.

We thought we would like to eat in Covent Garden at some point during our stay, so we walked down there after our refreshment to see if we could find somewhere appropriate. We had to pass through a wee illuminated tunnel into a very nice courtyard. 

We found a suitable candidate for tomorrow's lunch, so headed back to Kensington on the tube. We went to the Whole Food market before going to our hotel to pick up some nibbles and drinks and to have a look around. What a fine place it turned out to be. Lots to look at and buy. A huge place with plenty for everyone. We were impressed.

We went back to the hotel for a rest and then to freshen up for dinner at the Ivy Brasserie on Kensington High Street. 

The restaurant was very busy and quite noisy, but we didn't mind that.

Bob had a crab and avocado tian with a Parmesan crisp and a bloody Mary sauce to start. It was very good, but a tad soft and certainly not as good as Sharon’s crispy duck salad. For main, Bob had chicken Milanese, rocket salad and thrice cooked chips. It was very good. Sharon said that her salmon and smoked haddock fishcake on pea puree was the best she had ever eaten.We shared a chocolate bombe pudding. This was a chocolate dome covering ice cream, honeycomb, popping candy and chocolate ganache. A hot caramel sauce was poured over the chocolate dome to melt it at the table. It was to die for.

We went back to the hotel fully satisfied.

Day 3 Temples and food

We were up and off fairly quickly on Thursday morning. We had breakfast at Ole Steen, a Scandinavian place on Kensington High Street. The bread there was really very good. Sharon had a healthy yoghurt and fruit bowl, while Bob had poached eggs on avocado and toast. It was good, but it was a strange experience. We had to eat downstairs as it was so busy. Downstairs we were the only people not carrying out some sort of business deal. Every table had a notebook or two open and everyone was on the phone and doing deals. It was odd, and happily we don’t live in that world.

From there we went to the Bloomberg Building – European headquarters of the giant financial news, media and analytic company. We were not there because we needed advice on how to invest our multi-million pound fortune, we were there to visit the Roman Temple to the God Mithras, which lies underneath the £1 Billion office block. The temple was discovered during the war following bomb damage and was then moved to a nearby site. When the Bloomberg Building was erected, the temple was restored to its original site about 7 metres below the building. Entry is free and well worth the visit. There is an artefact wall that you can interrogate using a tablet computer. This forms one side of a bright airy gallery space which hosts visiting exhibitions. 

Small groups can then go down to the temple remains and watch a sound and light show about the Mithraic rituals. It is all well done and very atmospheric.

After this we walked along towards St Paul’s Cathedral, stopping off at another couple of churches designed by Christopher Wren, including St Mary le Bow. To be a real Cockney, you have to be born within hearing of the great bell of Bow. They were nice quiet little oases in the city.

The church in the pictures below is St Stephen Walbrook. It was designed by Christopher Wren and is considered to be his masterpiece. The church was named after the Walbrook river, on the banks of which the original church was built. The river, like many others has  been built over and is now well under the streets of London.
The Samaritans were founded here.

This is St Mary le Bow.

St Paul's Cathedral.

After a little sit down near St Paul's we set off along Fleet Street, heading for Covent Garden where we had previously spotted a potential lunch venue.

Where Fleet Street meets the Strand stands this Dragon statue. It was erected in 1880, after the previous marker of the boundary between the Westminster and the City of London was removed to widen the road. Barriers or markers have stood here since at least 1293. Although the barrier was not destroyed by the Great Fire of London in 1666, Wren was commissioned to design a new barrier as part of the widespread rebuilding of the City that followed the Fire. It was Wren's arched Temple Bar Gate that was removed in 1878 to widen the road. The Dragon is the symbol of the City of London.

We soon found Maison Bab in Covent Garden. It was a sort of Turkish/Ottoman restaurant and the food was really very nice. We had hummus with a spicy peanut topping, a tomato sauced flat bread with drinks. Bob had 15 hour pork shawarma with hot sauce, some unexpected fries and salad. Sharon had a spicy potato wrap with lettuce and spring onion salad and a basil dressing. Very good indeed.

After lunch we walked down to the river and along the Embankment towards Westminster and Whitehall, thrilled to be at the centre of democracy in our nation. The gardens were nice, the buildings were monstrous and brutal, exuding power, wealth and empire. It was a strangely fascinating place.

This was a memorial to members of the Fleet Air Arm who had died in conflict. Sharon's father had served in the Fleet Air Arm.

This is the memorial to the women who gave their lives in war.

The entrance to Downing Street.

The Cenotaph.

Looking back along King Charles Street, with Government offices on either side. On the left of the statue is Michael Portillo, one time government minister and now a political commentator and TV presenter, the only famous person we saw in the whole trip.

From Whitehall we walked through St James's park, which was very nice and quiet compared with the frantic pace of outside.

Apparently the Pelicans were a gift from Russia in 1664, that stayed and multiplied.

At the end of the park sits Buckingham Palace, which we didn't visit.

Instead, we went to Victoria, where Bob managed to find a Specsavers and get his glasses temporarily fixed after the leg fell off in the park. We then caught the tube to the hotel where we had a bit of a rest before we went out for more food, this time to Dishoom. In many ways this was the highlight restaurant of the holiday. It is an Indian restaurant, but unlike anything we have been to before. It specialises in Bombay street food and much of the menu included food that we had not seen or eaten before.

The restaurant does not take bookings and we were advised to be there fairly early unless we were prepared for a very long wait. We arrived at half past six. There were no tables available, but we were made very welcome and shown to the bar, which was busy with people waiting for a table. The bar staff were really friendly and chatty. Water was brought right away to every table as people sat down. Orders were taken and good gins and tonic delivered. It really was very slick and professional and you were not made to feel you were waiting, but it was all part of the experience. It is an experience for sure, The building is an old art deco Department store and there was a live jazz band. The place was alive.

However, we were here for food and we were at our table within half an hour. The menu was different, but the waiter was happy to help and we made choices based on his recommendation and on our desire to eat food we had never had before. We ordered 5 different plates and they came as they were prepared, so it was a bit like a tapas meal. We had Crispy garlic, soy, chilli chicken and then Bhel, which is puffed rice with Bombay mix, sev, tomato, onion, pomegranate, lime, tamarind and mint. That came with three sauces – mint, tamarind and chilli. We had amazing gunpowder potatoes, which were smoky grilled potatoes tossed in butter, spices and herbs. A 24 hour cooked black dhal and mutton pepper fry. This was tender mutton marinated in chilli, ginger and garlic, then cooked with black pepper, spices and dressed with curry leaves and lime and served with very good parathas. Everything was a delight and the whole lot came to half the bill of the Ivy. A joy.

We went back to the hotel very happy with the world.

Day 4 Museums and home

Our last day in London. After checking out and putting our bags into the hotel storage, we set off to find breakfast. We had been impressed by the Whole Foods market on Kensington High Street and thought we must be able to find a good breakfast there.

We were wrong.

The choice was very limited, which would explain why there was nobody about. We ended up with freshly squeezed orange juice, which was nice, but at nearly £5 each, just a tad on the expensive side. We also had a pain au chocolat and some yogurt and fruit compote.

So, not a great start to the day.

From there we did our only bit of real shopping - Sharon bought a top in Zara, the moment it opened doors. My kind of shopping - in, buy, out.

It was cold and a bit dreich, with some drizzle in the cold wind. We had expected that, so had decided to go to the museums for the day. Our first stop was the Natural History Museum after a bit of a walk through some very affluent parts of London.

We were soon faced with some enormous queues to get in. What else do you do in London on a wet Saturday? So, we joined in.

Once inside we joined the multitudes entering the bowels of the earth, passing by the dinosaur guarding the entrance.

 This took us into an exploration of the formation of the planet, rocks and minerals. This was all very interesting, but difficult to stop, see and enjoy because of the huge press of people. 

There were some really interesting fossils.

 It was so disagreeable, that we decided to get out and go to the V&A on the other side of the road. We did get to see the big whale skeleton on the ground floor.

And a mammoth head.

It was a shame that we had to leave - it looked really interesting and the building itself is just superb as you can see.

The first thing we did when we walked into the V&A without any need to queue or wait, was to have a cup of tea and a scone! That allowed us to recover our tranquility and to decide what we wanted to see. There was a reference in the guide to 20 treasures - objects that showed the breadth and depth of the collection. That was what we wanted, so we set off in search of the treasures. The museum is enormous and we could otherwise have spent days in there.

We did not actually do the treasures in numerical order, but I will set them out that way in the blog for convenience.

Treasure 1 -The Raphael Cartoons.

These date from 1515-1516 when Raphael drew full sized cartoons or sketches for enormous tapestries he designed for Pope Leo X. The cartoons were sliced into large strips for the weavers working in Brussels. The woven strips, which took 5 years to make were then reassembled and the tapestries were hung in the Vatican.

Remarkable.

Treasure 2 - A Betel Nut Container

This bird shaped box was designed to hold betel, a mild drug. Most Burmese (Myanmar) families had one. This one belonged to the last King of Burma - Thibaw. He was overthrown by the British and the box taken to London, where it was displayed with the rest of the regalia from 1890 to 1964. The regalia were returned to Myanmar then and as a gesture of friendship, the box was returned to the museum.

It is gold with rubies and imitation emeralds.

Treasure 3 - Evening Coat

I think we got this one wrong. For most of our search we did not realise that there were big pictures of the treasures and we were relying on images the size of a stamp.

The real evening coat was designed in 1937 by Elsa Schiaparelli, an Italian working in Paris. It has a bunch of roses covering the shoulders and these appear to be held in a vase, which is actually two faces in profile, their lips puckered and ready to kiss. It was from a drawing by the Surrealist Jean Cocteau and Schiaparelli considered what she did to be art and not a profession. The coat we took a photo of was designed by someone else entirely!

Treasure 4 - Tipu's Tiger

Tipu was an Indian ruler from 1782 to 1799. His personal emblem was the tiger and he fought against the British East India Company. He had many possessions with tiger designs and this one showed a tiger eating a European enemy. There was a handle on the side which turned an organ that made the sound of the growling tiger and the screaming victim. Tipu was defeated in 1799 and the tiger was brought back to Britain  and exhibited by the East India Company until it went to the V&A's predecessor in 1897.

Treasure 5 The Ardabil Carpet

The Ardabil Carpet was made in 1539 and it is one of the most significant carpets in the world. At over 400 years old it is important for its design, craftsmanship and history. It was already famous in the late 19th Century when it was sold to pay for building repairs to the shrine of Ardabil in North West Iran. The museum was recommended to buy it by none other than William Morris. Unfortunately, I did not get a very good picture of it.

Treasure 6 - The Mazarin Chest

This black lacquered wooden chest is from Japan and dates to about 1640. It was, like many others of the type, made for export to the west. One of the first owners was Jules Mazarin a French statesman and Cardinal. It passed through his family after his death and eventually went to an eccentric English novelist and collector William Beckford in 1800. He fell into debt and he had to sell his collection and this chest went to the V&A for the then enormous sum of £772 in 1882.

Treasure 7 Samson slaying a Philistine

This sculpture by Giambologna was commissioned by one of the Medici princes in 1560. The dramatic pose is based on a composition by Michelangelo. The spiralling, interconnected bodies means it doesn't have a single viewpoint. It came to London in 1623 and soon became the most famous Italian sculpture in the country.

Treasure 8 The Gloucester Candlestick

This is a unique example of medieval English gold work. No other piece as technically and artistically complex survives. It was cast from a mixture of precious metals, possibly from a hoard of coins that was melted down. It dates from 1107 to 1113.

Treasure 9 the Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci

Leonardo kept dozens of notebooks wherein he had recorded his thoughts on a huge range of subjects. The V&A owns four of these books.

Leonardo wrote most of his notebooks using mirror writing. That is, he wrote from right to left, meaning that the script could only sensibly be read using a mirror. In modern life this is most often seen when the word ambulance is written on the front of the vehicle so that drivers see the word the right way round in their rear view mirror.

There is some thought that Leonardo used this method because it is easier for left handed people, or as a simple cipher or perhaps as means of reinforcing learning. Whatever, it is pretty cool.

Treasure 10 Winged Head 1, 1962

This glass sculpture is typical of work by the Czech husband and wife couple, Stanislav Libensky and Jaroslava Brychtova. They were among the first to explore glass as a sculptural material rather than a decorative one. Libensky drew the designs and Brychtova translated these to clay models which were then made into glass sculpture. The thickness of the glass could be abstract and of different thicknesses. The pair are the thought to be the greatest inovators of 20th Century art glass.

We were not that impressed by it.

Treasure 11 The Heneage Jewel.

This jewel carries a portrait of Elizabeth I. It is actually a locket and inside is a painting of the queen painted by Nicholas Hilliard. Elizabeth often exchanged gifts with Sir Thomas Heneage, who was Vice-Chamberlain of the Royal Household. It dates form about 1595.

Treasure 12. The First Folio 1623

This is one of only 235 copies of the first collected edition of the works of Shakespeare. It was published in 1623, seven years after his death. It contains 36 of his 37 plays. Without the First Folio, 18 of the plays would never have been known as none of the original manuscripts survive. It is also important because the two editors divided the Folio into comedies, tragedies and histories, which shaped the understanding of the plays ever since.

Treasure 13 Devonshire Hunting Tapestries 1430-1450

The Devonshire Hunting Tapestries are very large wall hangings of which few of this scale and complexity survive. They were owned by the Dukes of Devonshire in Derbyshire. They were probably made in Arras.

Treasure 14 Salisbury Cathedral from the Bishop's Ground 1823

This painting, by John Constable was commissioned by his friend Dr John Fisher, the Bishop of Salisbury. He is shown with his wife in the bottom left corner of the painting. Apparently, Constable found the architectural detail difficult to paint. The Bishop hated the dark cloud, preferring a clear blue sky. Constable became really celebrated after his death and his skies were particularly admired.

Treasure 15 Club Armchair

This armchair in tubular steel is one of the most important and popular designs of the 20th Century. It was created by Hungarian Marcel Breuer in 1925. The design has become a symbol of the Modernist movement. Breuer worked with a plumber to bend the stainless steel tubes into shape. Club armchairs were traditionally heavy, whilst this was light and the components of the chair seem to float in the air.

Treasure 16 Cavalier sur sa Monture

This ceramic was created by Pablo Picasso in 1950. He was one of the most influential artists of the 20th Century and his work spanned all sorts of artistic media. He turned to ceramics when he was 65. When these pieces were first shown in Britain, they inspired a new generation of potters. We didn't like it that much.

Treasure 17 The Three Graces

The three graces were the daughters of Zeus - Thalia, representing youth and beauty, Euphrosyne, mirth and Aglaia, elegance. They were sculpted by Antonio Canova  between 1814 and 1817 for the 6th Duke of Bedford. He had commissioned the work after seeing another in Canova's studio, which had been created for Napoleon's estranged wife Josephine. Sculpture depicting Greek and Roman mythology was all the rage in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Canova was the leading artist of his day in Europe.

Treasure 18. The Great Bed of Ware

This bed has been famous since it was made in the 1590's. Shakespeare mentioned it in his play Twelfth Night. It is a cultural icon and typical of flamboyant Elizabethan beds. It was once highly coloured and the great size of the bed was thought to be an attraction to the coaching inn at Ware, one day;s journey north of London.

Treasure 19 Banyan

By the 17th Century, the fashionable and rich European man wore a loose fitting gown instead of a formal suit when he got home from work. This one is of silk and was an expensive and luxurious choice of fabric. These garments illustrate the importance and value of trading links with Asia.

Treasure 20. The Serilly Cabinet

The Serilly Cabinet had us confused for a while. It is not a cabinet as we had thought, but, in fact, a whole garden room. It is an exceptional example of Neo-classical style from 1770's Paris. It was designed for Madame de Serilly, the 16 year old bride of the Paymaster General to the French army. His parents owned the Hotel Serilly in Paris and the cabinet was added to the hotel, but was only accessible from the garden. It is not known if this was to allow the young bride to escape her in-laws or her older husband, but it was intended as her private retreat.

This treasure hunt allowed us to see every floor of the museum and to look at some of the amazing objects on display. These were astonishing for all sorts of reasons. Some were just plain weird, whilst others were jaw dropping for the audacity of their design or the beauty of their form.

The globe below was a kind of half enclosed sitting and reading area.

This was a table decoration that actually had running water inside. Why?

Sharon loves the odd Samurai warrior.

Modern, eye catching sculpture that demanded attention, but was ultimately less satisfying than Samson or the Three Graces.

There is a full hall devoted to plaster casts of various famous monuments, one of which is the Trajan Column from Rome, the original of which is well over 2000 years old.

There is a film and theatre section where Sharon wanted to stay for ever. It features objects like this warhorse

Time was marching on, so we had to leave the V&A to get back for a bite to eat and to pick up our cases to go home. We had really enjoyed our time in the museum and we will certainly go back. We headed off to the tube and once we reached Kensington High Street, we went to Bill's for a quick vegetable sharing platter and a cold beer for Bob.

We picked up our bags and caught the tube to Victoria, where we caught the Gatwick Express, all without incident. Gatwick was very quiet and it was actually pleasant for an airport. We went to Jamie's for our dinner and they were happy to let us sit and take our time. It was all very civilised.

We spent some of that time with some crispy bread and olives along with a drink.

After that Bob had Tortelloni stuffed with rabbit and chicken with a sage butter sauce. We shared a salad and Sharon had a buratta on pea puree bruschetta, all with a nice glass of wine. A very good way to finish the holiday.

The flight was called a little early and the plane was short of being full. We took off a few minutes early and chased the sunset north, landing a full half hour sooner than scheduled. That was a real bonus, getting us home at a reasonable time and feeling pretty good.

This was an unexpected trip for Bob and he thoroughly enjoyed the whole thing. We had been saying we needed to go back to London, well we did and we will do it again.