Kew and the V&A

Today Meredith & I split up for our own separate adventures.  Meredith went to the Tower of London and the British Museum and I went to the V&A and Kew Gardens.

I wanted to go to the V&A (Victoria & Albert Museum) because it intrigued me.  It seems like a museum of all decorative work.  The volume it has is amazing (& daunting), and it is a huge place.  There was a long corridor just full of ironworks!  I saw another with sculptures (by Bernini, Rodin...) as well as 2 other rooms I saw, and more I didn't go into.  Jewelry, metalwork, glass, theatre, photography, painting, tapestry, architecture, furniture, ceramics... those were the thematic ones.  There are areas for study, areas for research, then there are areas that take you through by period of history, and some that focus on particular artists.  There's an area on fashion too.  Displays oriented by time period throw all the arts together to depict it - fabrics, furniture, tableware, painting, etc.  It's almost as if one needs to have an understanding of the whole of European history to fully grasp & appreciate all the objects.  It is a vivid reminder of the how intertwined many countries histories are intertwined with England's.

Here were some of my favorites...
A daguerreotype of the opening of the 1851 Great Exhibition
In the Asia section, there was a tapestry that was a map.  It was amazing
Seeing Raphael's tapestry Cartoons and a corresponding tapestry

As for the Kew Gardens, we haven't managed to see any gardens yet, and so when my Mother suggested go to Kew, to Kew I went!  Kew Gardens has the oldest (functional? intact?) Victorian glass building.  It was lovely.  Kew has many indoor gardens, but most of them I did not see.  You may recall an earlier post mentioning that all the trees here are unfamiliar.  Well, Kew puts labels on their trees so most of my time was spent wandering from strange looking tree to strange looking tree.  It was marvelous, and there are some really strange (lovely) trees. 

Only one hitch in today's events and that was transportation.  The train line to Kew Gardens was closed past a certain point, and so I had to take a "rail replacement" bus, which was decidedly far better (quicker, less mob-like) than Calgary's Ctrain replacement buses, although still a bit painful.  Compensation: it was a double-decker bus and so I sat on the top level and got to see the area I was travelling through.  Not sure it was worth the time though - getting back to the hostel took me an hour and a half.

Tomorrows plan: Tate & Churchill War Rooms, possibly Westminster Abbey.  I'm also on the hunt for some place I can buy food I can eat (like groceries).  I'm pretty much just eating fruit, veggies and meat.  Rice if I can cook some for dinner.  I'm generally running on hungry.

London

London is a zoo!  Hordes of people everywhere!  Down every street, in every park!  Tourists!  Ugh!

We did a walking tour today, ate lunch in Trafalger Square, took a gander round the National Museum (not enough time!) and walked Charing Cross road for it's bookshops.  (One of the photos is Regent Park, which we discovered yesterday evening).

The national museum was amazing.  Like I said - not enough time.  There was one wing I didn't even see.  I kept coming back to a VanGogh I don't think I've ever seen before, an unfinished one, by the title of "Farms near Auvers."  I just adore it.  I spent some time sketching it since photos aren't allowed.  VanGoghs work is just so dynamic!  Also saw a Monet that I'm sure I owned a print of at one point - the one with the bridge over the lilypad pad, all quite green.  Also saw "The Ambassadors" by Holbein.  I was walking down a gallery looking for Meredith and glimpsed it across three galleries and through two doors.  Many of the paintings are much softer than what I expected (perhaps I am too used to the impressionists).  I am always looking for brushstrokes & some betrayal of technique, they are so utterly well blended!  And so precise!

It's quite a challenge to navigate the streets here because the maps we have don't show them all, and their intersections are not the same as ours.  Streets coincide at strange angles, sometimes six at once - they are not predictable or familiar in their structure.  That and feeling like you're always in a gully (buildings are all 4ish stories high) - it all feels quite overwhelming.

At Charing Cross road I bought a couple books.  Meredith always has one, and I've been regreting not bringing one for the inbetween times.  Nearly all the Agatha Christie books had horrendous, awful covers.  I went with the least offensive one- one by the title of "Peril at End House."

All the best things

Let me tell you about yesterday...

Edinburgh.  I feel rather surrounded.  Our hostel is on the fourthish floor of some building on a tiny street surrounded by tall stone buildings.  In fact, I think everything we've seen here so far is stone, but we haven't seen much.  Much of the city is out of our sight and obscured and away from our discovery.  We don't even know what things there are to see here that we haven't seen, although surely there are lots (like more galleries).  This hostel is much nicer than the last.  The kitchen is shiny, the chairs & bed comfy, and the people friendlier.  And it's quiet enough at night to sleep even (oh the luxury of it all)!

It was an eventful day here.  Castle, Crown Jewels, Monet, Rembrant & Vermeer, as well as finally stumbling upon some chai tea!  The castle was crowded crowded crowded, and Meredith & I split up for much of our exploring there.  Best part of the castle - I enjoyed sitting and pondering for a time in the large & impressive war memorial.  It is beautiful and in a prominent place, but beyond that, of course, significant.  I also enjoyed reading about the history of the crown jewels.  How fascinating!  (And I have rediscovered how much of a sucker I am for postcards). 

We stopped in at the National Gallery on the way back, and not knowing what to expect, I was absolutely delighted (I may have even gasped aloud once or twice) to discover pieces in the flesh that I know and am familiar with through textbooks.  Vermeer, Rodin, Turner, Constable, Rembrandt.  The Rembrandt in particular - it is the self portrait of him at age 51.  Unfortunately, closing time prevented me from discovering the VanGogh & Monet (a haystack)!  I will be back Tomorrow!

It was a good day.

Tomorrow being today I should mention that we did go back.  I saw pieces by Monet, VanGogh, Cezanne, Picasso!  I could have gazed at the VanGogh all day!  I also saw some older works that we missed the first time through.

Stirling, complete with Castle

Yesterday, before we left town, we checked out the castle.  We had had a wander about the first night we arrived, but didn't have time to see it (although we did unintentionally wander past the oldest pub in town).  The streets are narrow and many are cobblestone.  All roads seem to lead up.  The castle is the highest point on an outcropping of rock which contains the city centre and it's oldest buildings (a jail, a church, a cemetery....).  It has an amazing view in every direction as it is high over every other point.  It was built by James 4th & 5th.  It has been used in various ways by various people over the years.  It sounds like the army used and was housed in it for a time and remodeled much of it to their purposes.  The buildings themselves are in pretty great shape although few of the first & oldest buildings still stand.  Although the structure is lovely and the view stunning, I actually was a bit disappointed.  After Hardwick Hall the other day, I was looking forward to seeing a lot of the furnishings of the place.  What was it like?  How was it used?  Except for 2 rooms, it was basically unfurnished.  The two rooms that were furnished were the Queen's bedchamber & inner hall.  In the inner hall, at least, were some lovely tapestries.  Not originals, replicas, but absolutely lovely. 

The rest of the town sprawls out below, covers old battlefields, and is much flatter.  We talked to a woman who lamented that the young people didn't recognize the treasure that they had living in this place, with this history.  The gentleman who sold us our castle tickets told us this was the best weather they'd seen in a year. 

The Scottish highlands & driving on the wrong side of the road

I'm getting better & better at taking pictures from a moving vehicle - judging the gaps between trees, getting shutter speed just right, being quick on the trigger... significant improvement.  Yesterday we had a rental car in order to drive to Glencoe, a place not really all that feasible to get to (& back) by bus, but a place we were keen to see nonetheless.  Meredith did the driving, and I'm sure you can imagine that it was rather tense.  Traffic circles (roundabouts) are not few are far between as they are at home, rather they are at virtually every intersection.  They come fast and furious.  I'm not sure if my headache comes from being a passenger running that gauntlet, or from a dehydrating day, but today I was definitely happy to again travel by train.

The journey itself was lovely, and once we got out of the town it was one road and smooth sailing (mostly).  We stopped a couple of times when the beauty of the scenery was too much to merely be enjoyed in passing.  The best place we stopped along the way was a moor, with it's delightful mounds of grass and it's soggy ground.  We explored a bit.  Found some curious plants, and some lichen-y rocks, and some good views.  The land is more mountainous than anything we'd seen thus far.  Mounds that may actually warrant the name mountain. 

We discovered this first hand when we did a short hike near the three sisters, up to a hidden valley, "Coire Gabhail."  It was lovely & rocky, but where in our landscape, we would have Aspens, here were Birches, as well as higher (in elevation) than aspens would get.  There were also many ferns, and many plants I didn't recognize at all.  We followed a creek up and had an excellent view of the trail below.  I think my favorite part of seeing a place is seeing the landscape.  For me it means a better sense of what the place is like.

Here are some photos...
(I realize that I have gotten a day behind in the reports, but our time has been pretty packed.  I think I am currently suffering from lack-of-introvert-time that even gummy bears can't cure - I've tried)

Our long train ride

Yesterday we travelled by train from Dronfield to Stirling to begin our 4-day stint in Scotland.  We changed trains several times, but P saw us through the first couple so that we would get the hang of it, and catch the right train to Edinburgh.  The day was clear and the green and yellow fields rolled by.  We passed through York, Durham, Newcastle, to name a few, and caught the sights of Yorkminster, Durham Castle, & the Newcastle bridges & city centre from our moving train.

Between the recent busy days and travelling through dinner, we found ourselves both pretty tired & hungry.  Nonetheless we managed a walk around town before the sunset for the day.  Pictures from Stirling will have to wait, but here's some (hopefully not too blurry) shots from our train trip.

Landscape of the peak district

Today we went on a hike/walk to Mam Tor, Back Tor, & Losehill and down to the town of Hope, which is in the peak district.  It's somewhat of a ridge walk really.  We had perfect weather, although the wind was incredibly strong.  It's a beautiful area, and very interesting.  This area is the dividing line between two types of geology - the land we were on & drove through is all limestone and, predictably, there are many caves in the area.  Including one with the only source of a particular variety of feldspar, if I've got it right, called "Blue John."  This limestone land is covered in grass (of the greenest lawn-type).  Across the valley in the distance, the rock is sandstone and the land is covered in heather, currently a purply brown (blooms in august).  It is a visible indicator of the geology below.

The walk was lovely, on a well maintained stone trail for the portion on the ridge.  The walking trails and "public footbaths" weave everywhere here - throughout the hills, and through all kinds of fields and through the towns.  Fields with sheep, fields with cows, fields with bulls, fields with chickens, hillsides... It's quite charming.  The land is hilly, mostly all rolling and green, with some exposed rock.  The trees are nearly all unfamiliar.  It seems like the perfect land for aspens, but there's none to be seen!  Instead, the trees are large and bushy.  All of the sudden the trees in paintings by Gainsborough, Fragonard, etc seem less strange to me.  In the store in Castleton I flipped through a book on trees and bought myself a book on flowers.

Tommorrow means the end of our time here, and our train trip to Scotland.  We will certainly miss our hosts who have been so good to us.