Thursday, May 9, 2013 - London Adventures

It's been a great 2+ days adventuring around London. We are feeling very good (no jet lag!) and have mastered the Underground (aka tube) subway system.

Yesterday we left our hotel in Ravenscourt Park and "tubed" to Blackfriars and the Tate Modern Art Gallery. While I admit we are not huge fans of all modern art, we did enjoy the Mark Rothko installation and the building itself, which appears to be a repurposed industrial building from the 1930's - will have to read up on its history.

As we had time and energy to spare, we walked to the Museum of the City of London, which we had enjoyed on a visit 10 years ago. They had changed a great deal of the exhibits but it still had wonderful content on the Roman settlement history and particularly the bombing of London during WWII. I saw and heard a number of things that had also been recounted by my mom, who was born in London and lived there all through the war.

The evening highlight was dinner with my Aunt Joan and Uncle Charles, as well as my cousin Caroline. Although we have only been reacquainted since 2003 it is a joy to connect with them at each visit.

Today was spent mainly at the Victoria & Albert Museum, where you could spend a lifetime and not see all the collections! We then visited Harrod's to gawk at the food courts and opulent merchandising, and topped off the day with High Tea at the Wolseley - the scones with clotted cream are divine!

Now it is time to pack up - we are up at 5 am tomorrow to catch the 5:55 to Heathrow - we will be in Split, Croatia by 5 pm tomorrow!

We are easily amused - this hotel room and floor directory strikes us as a tad elementary.

The view of Ravenscourt Park out of our 13th floor room

A lovely example of ornamental ironwork at the Victoria & Albert Museum.

This array of cakes at Harrod's reminded us of a Wayne Thiebaud painting.

Reveling in afternoon high tea at The Wolseley - delish!