London: St. Paul's Cathedral, British Library, Parliament, Churchill War Museum & British Museum

Tuesday, August 13

We are up and out of the hotel headed to our little neighborhood breakfast spot by 7:30 am.  The walk to the café takes us by interesting buildings and beautiful flowers. 

     

Then it is off to St. Paul's Cathedral--England’s national church.  There has been a church on this spot since 604.  It was the symbol of London’s rise from the Great Fire of 1666 and of the city’s survival of the Blitz in 1940.  Today it is the center of the Anglican faith. 

No sooner was Sir Christopher Wren selected to refurbish Old St. Paul’s Cathedral than the Great Fire of 1666 incinerated it (and stopped the Black Plague).  Within a week after the fire Wren had a plan for a whole new building, and for the city around it, complete with some 50 new churches.  For the next four decades, he worked to achieve his vision—a spacious church, topped by a dome, surrounded by a flock of Wrens.

And again, no photography allowed.  We had an audio guide that led us through the cathedral, the crypt and the dome.  The following photos were all taken from the internet in order to show you how magnificent this building is.

Cathedral Nave

The Grand Organ

The Quire

The Crypt:  the Cathedral’s foremost burial place. In the crypt lie some of the nation’s heroes including the Cathedral’s architect Sir Christopher Wren as well as the magnificent tombs of Admiral Lord Nelson and the Duke of Wellington.

Duke of Wellington tomb

Nelson's Tomb

Christopher Wren's Tomb.  Very plain.  Inscription says something to the effect
that if you seek a monument, look around you.

We climbed up the dome to the Whispering Gallery and tried out its unique acoustics; a whisper on one side can be heard clearly 100 feet away. Well, not exactly as there were just too many people also trying to whisper and hear.  We climbed 271 more steps and reached the Golden Gallery at the very top of the dome and enjoyed breathtaking panoramic views across London.

 

Whispering Gallery

Ernie & Mark coming down the steep  stairwell from the top of the dome.

There are many historic pubs around St. Paul’s and we searched out one for lunch.  Then it was a walk over the Millennium (pedestrian) Bridge to the South Thames area.

From the Roman era until recently, the south side of the river was the wrong side of the tracks.  For centuries, it was London’s red light district.  In the 20^th century it became an industrial wasteland of empty warehouses and street crime.  Today the prostitutes and pickpockets are gone, replaced by a riverside promenade dotted with pubs, cutesy shops, and historic tourist sites and a few artists and musicians.

We had hoped to stop by and buy tickets for the Shakespeare Globe Theatre performance in the 'groundling' area (standing area just below the stage area) and stay for awhile for the experience of it all, but they were all sold out.  By 1599, William Shakespeare was a well-known actor, playwright, and businessman in the booming theater trade.  His acting company built the 3,000 seat Globe Theatre.  The Globe premiered Shakespeare’s greatest works—Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth in open-air summer performances.  In 1612 during a performance, a fire started offstage and completely burned the building to the ground. Today’s Globe Theater was built 200 yards from the original and is a quite realistic replica, though slightly smaller (and constructed with fire-repellant materials).

While walking along the bankside of the Thames, we saw a few spots on the side of the Shard building.  A closer look revealed that those spots were window washers dangling on the side of the building, many stories up in the air.  Yikes! 

Since a theatre performance at the Globe was out, we formulated a Plan “B” and jumped on the Tube, heading to the British Library where we saw manuscripts from ancient times, the Magna Carta, and even a few handwritten lyrics by the Beatles.  And again, no photographs allowed inside!

Isaac Newton statue outside the British Library

British Library

Wednesday, August 14

We have an early start to our day as we need to be over to Westminster Palace, aka the Houses of Parliament for a guided tour by 9:00 am.  The restaurants around here don’t seem to open prior to 7:30 am but a take-away place was open and we stopped there instead of our usual café.  We ordered at the counter and then found our way to the basement where there were some tables to sit by.  Today we all had a traditional English breakfast that included baked beans and a baked tomato along with some form of egg and bacon or ham.  Coffee is paid for by the cup and we generally had 2 cups each (at about 2.40GBP per cup) to get us going in the morning.  That’s about $7.50 per person just for coffee….I told you London is expensive but coffee is a necessary expense! 

We took the Tube over to Westminster for the Houses of Parliament Tour.   The tours start by following the route taken by The Queen at the State Opening of Parliament; from The Queen’s Robing Room, through the Royal Gallery and Prince’s Chamber, into the majestic Lords Chamber.  Tours then move on through Central Lobby, Members’ Lobby and one of the voting lobbies before entering the Commons Chamber, scene of many lively debates.  The tours end in 900 old Westminster Hall, a place where many historic trials have taken place and where Nelson Mandela and Barack Obama have addressed Parliament in more recent years.  Most of what is seen on the tour was built in the mid 19^th century following a devastating fire in 1834, but the route also incorporates Westminster Hall, begun in 1097.  No photos were allowed except in Westminster Hall.

 

Houses of Parliament

Queen's Robing Room

House of Lords

After the Parliament tour we headed over to the Churchill War Rooms.  This is the underground headquarters of the British government’s fight against the Nazis in the darkest days of the Battle for Britain.  The 27-room, heavily fortified nerve center of the British war effort was used from 1939 to 1945.  Churchill’s room, the map room, and other rooms are just as they were in 1945.  The Cabinet War Rooms provided the secret underground headquarters for the core of the British government throughout the Second World War. 

We had a good audio tour to listen to.

One of the strategic planning rooms

Churchill's bedroom in the underground bunker

The fear that London would be the target of aerial bombardment had troubled the government since the First World War and in 1938 the basement of a Whitehall building was chosen as the site for the Cabinet War Rooms. From 1940 – 1945 hundreds of men and women would spend thousands of vital hours here and it soon became the inner sanctum of British government.  There is also a museum dedicated to Sir Winston Churchill. It provides a comprehensive overview of Churchill’s life.  We spent over 2 hours here and could have spent more time. 

 

Churchill's motto during the Blitz

After grabbing a quick lunch, we found the Tube station and headed to the British Museum.  

In the 19^th century the British flag flew over one-fourth of the world.  London was the world’s capital.  The British Museum is the chronicle of Western civilization.  In it you can follow the rise and fall of three great civilizations—Egypt, Assyria, and Greece. One could spend days in here but we only had a couple hours so we concentrated on just the most exciting following Rick Steves’ audio guide to show us the highlights.

 

British Museum

Terry with an Egyptian bird

Egyptian mummy

A chunk of the Sphinx beard

We enjoyed going through the Egyptian rooms.  We would love to actually go to Egypt and see the pyramids, but with the turmoil over there today, this may be as close to seeing ancient Egypt as we will get.

Everyone was crowded around the Rosetta Stone at the entrance to the museum.  When this rock was unearthed in the Egyptian desert in 1799, it was a sensation in Europe.  This black slab caused a quantum leap in the evolution of history.  Finally, Egyptian writing could be decoded.

 

Rosetta Stone

After our quick overview of the museum, we called it a day and headed back to the hotel on the Tube.