London, day four….
We got serious today with our list of places to visit. Depending on how you’d count, we knocked off seven places on our list. I think it had something todo with Rosie’s multiple double-espresso in the morning.
Our first stop was the Trafalgar Square and the National Gallery. This was number two on my list of places to visit. The size of Trafalgar Square is hard to understand until you actually see it in person. The fountains out front are huge, we spent 10-15 minutes just crossing it from the tube station. Once we got inside the national gallery, Rosie and Isaac took off at warp speed. I got the map, starting at one in and moving through each hall. I can honestly say that pictures of people are pretty boring to me. My favorites were all of things or places. But what I was surprised about was the size of many of the paintings. Entire rooms were full of portraits, with not a single one smaller than 10 feet tall.
I was looking forward to seeing van Gogh’s Sunflowers in person, I would consider it one of his more famous paintings. (For the simple fact that it is the only one I could name off the top of my head) But my favorite was van Gogh’s Chair.
But of the impressionist, I have always perfered Monet. I just love his water Lily’s and one of the things I am most looking forward to in Paris is seeing the water lily room. So of course my favorite painting isn’t he national gallery was the The Water Lily Pond.
But the National Gallary has may 10 Monet’s and a bunch of them of winter settings. I had never seen a Monet with snow in it, in my limited art history knowledge all of his paintings are of spring and summer settings. So when I saw The Thames below Westminster, I was blown away.
Our next stop was Leicester Square and Piccadilly Circus, since it is maybe five minutes from the National Gallary. It was as crazy with people as you would expect. The line to get into the Lego store was longer any line we have seen for a ‘real’ tourist site. Isaac was good skipping Lego and went straight to the M&M store across the street. I had never seen one of these before, Rosie says there is one in Las Vegas now. It was four different floors (Two above ground and two below) I was so tired of M&M when we finally made it out of there.
Since it was now lunch time (at least for us), we went around the corner to what I would call Chinatown, but I am not sure that is what they call it here. We found a dim sum place and had a very taste lunch.
During lunch we decided our next stop was the London Eye, or as it is now called the Coca-Cola London Eye. I actually purchased tickets online during lunch, which saved a bunch of time. So after another tube ride, we got in line to ride the big wheel. (For those keeping track at home, we are now up to four places on our todo list)
One of the nice things about taking a ride on the London Eye, you get a great view of that part of London. We got to see Big Ben and Parliament pretty well, plus a long distant view of Buckingham Palace.
And no, I can’t say Big Ben and Parliament without thinking, “Hey look, kids, there’s Big Ben, and there’s Parliament.”
I had to tweak this picture a little (and in my iPhone actually) so you could make out Buckingham Palace. Seeing it up close wasn’t big on my list, but I think Rosie may still try to get over to see it.
Using a little fuzzy math, that makes seven items on our list we checked off today. Tomorrow Rosie is heading out to where ever her company has their London office (which is about an hour train ride from London) to have lunch with her manager and co-workers. I was going to take Isaac to the Harry Potter sound stage, but discovered they are sold out for tomorrow. They are also sold out for the rest of the month and most of March. Oops – guess I should have bought the tickets a couple months ago. So instead we are going to the Sherlock Holmes museum and then hunting for one of the few blue Police boxes left in the city. (Can you say Dr. Who fans?)