London - a city for all seasons

What does one do in London when you have some time free but the weather is bad? Plenty!!

I decided to meet my cousin John at Hyde Park where he was slated to conduct a tour..........luckily for me (and for him) due to the poor weather, there were not too many tourists to form a group. The Spanish tours on the other hand were absolutely packed. The weather being what it was, rainy and cold, it was better to stick to activities indoors.

We promptly headed to the Natural History Museum which is a beautiful building. There was a temporary exhibition that we were hoping to see - Animal Inside Out jointly hosted by the Body Worlds and the NHM. I had seen an exhibition of Gunther von Hagen's Body Worlds in Germany some years ago and knew that this exhibition on animals would be spectacular as well. The 100 or so plastinated animals and capillary specimens displayed the intricate insides and inner workings of the world's most spectacular creatures from elephants and giraffes, to cows and goats to octupuses and ostriches. It was a true anatomical safari of the natural world.

The beautiful Natural History Museum

Quite an imposing building

A specimen of the plastinated animal

Post that, John headed to meet a friend for lunch, whilst I decided to continue with my museum visit. One of the things I love about London is that it has a variety of museums and they are all FREE except for temporary exhibitions. So I proceeded to the Victoria and Albert Museum which is housed in a beautiful building as well. It is the world's greatest museum of art and design and has collections from different centuries, eras and dynasties. The few hours spent there were worthwhile but not enough. Hopefully I will return again.

I then decided to grab a bite and later wander the hallways of Harrod's and the food halls of Selfridges. I was lucky because there was an Irish festival at Selfridges and they were showcasing Irish produce and cuisine in the food section. I spent an enjoyable time watching the free cook offs and sampling the chocolates, biscuits, cheeses, salmon and beef.

Later in the evening, I met my friend Jo for drinks and dinner. We went to a trendy restaurant in the heart of Soho called Bocco di Lupo run by Jacob Kenedy. I can assure you that the food was excellent, the staff very helpful and the ambience relaxing.

This cuttlefish was mindblowing.

Still drooling over the memory of it.

The next day, I headed back into town to attend a play at the Old Vic - The Duchess of Malfi which is a Jacobean tragedy by John Webster. The performance was superb and I had a wonderful time.

So irrespective of the weather, one can truly find plenty of things to do in London and still enjoy oneself.

A Canterbury Tale....

I was fascinated by Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales when I first came across them in University whilst I was reading English. The Canterbury Tales is a collection of stories written at the end of the 14th century about a group of pilgrims travelling together on a journey to the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket at the Canterbury Cathedral.

So recently when in London on a business trip, I had the opportunity of visiting Canterbury over the weekend, I immediately jumped at the chance. Luckily for me, my cousin John and his friend Helena were able to join me, making the trip even more entertaining and enjoyable. It was surprising how many people I came across (including John and Helena) who had never been to Canterbury even though it was only a 90 minute train ride from London. Don't we all take our own country for granted?

We took the train from St Pancras station to Canterbury West (there is Canterbury East too and both stations are equidistant from the Cathedral). It lies in the district of Kent which is in the South East part of England. The cathedral dominates the town and is the most important site of the Church of England. It is also a place of pilgrimage after the murder of Thomas Becket in 1170. This pilgrimage provided the theme for  The Canterbury Tales.

Many historical structures remain in the city, including a city wall founded in Roman times and rebuilt in the 14th century, the ruins of St Augustine's Abbey and a Norman castle, and perhaps the oldest school in England, The King's School. Modern additions include the University of Kent, Canterbury Christ Church University, the Marlowe Theatre, and the St Lawrence Ground, home to Kent County Cricket Club. 

The first thing that greets you is the Roman gate with a quaint City Gaol Cafe! Then you wander through narrow cobble-stoned lanes with interesting tea shops, chocolate and sweet shops and pubs/restaurants with amusing names. The entrance to the Cathedral is quite ornate and is filled with sculptures. The Cathedral itself is quite huge and cavernous. The stained glass is one of its most important works of art. The tombs of the Black Knight and Saint Thomas Becket and all the Archbishops of Canterbury are also to be found within its precincts.

All in all, it was an interesting day trip.

The Roman Gate

The entrance to the cathedral

Amazing sculptures

The magnificent building

The cavernous interior

The beautiful stained glass collection

The cloisters

The bustling town square

Helena, John and myself having a vegan lunch

So typical of Canterbury!

The British Airways Aviation museum

British Airways have their own aviation museum at their headquarters in Waterside!!

http://www.britishairways.com/travel/history-and-heritage

This is my favourite.........the dress is made of paper and was the uniform on the Caribbean flights!!

The cities of Bath and Bristol

Recently I had to go to the UK on work. As it so happened I was supposed to be working the weekend but at the last moment, found that the meeting on Saturday was cancelled and I had the entire weekend off. I had decided to visit the city of Bath and my cousin Maryann who was free, decided to accompany me.

The City of Bath is truly amazing. It is a world heritage site and is historic in its importance. The city was first established as a spa resort with the Latin name, Aquae Sulis ("the waters of Sulis") by the Romans in AD 43 although verbal tradition suggests that Bath was known before then. They built baths and a temple on the surrounding hills of Bath in the valley of the River Avon around hot springs, which are the only ones naturally occurring in the United Kingdom. Edgar was crowned king of England at Bath Abbey in 973. Much later, it became popular as a spa resort during the Georgian era, which led to a major expansion that left a heritage of exemplary Georgian architecture crafted from Bath Stone.

Source: Wikipedia

The must sees are:
a) The Roman Baths - I loved the recreation of the ancient site. I wish they would take as much effort to resurrect history and culture at heritage sites in India.

The Roman Bath

Archaeological evidence shows that the site of the Roman Baths' main spring was treated as a shrine by the Celts and was dedicated to the goddess Sulis, whom the Romans identified with Minerva; however, the name Sulis continued to be used after the Roman invasion, leading to the town's Roman name of Aquae Sulis. Messages to her scratched onto metal, known as curse tablets, have been recovered from the Sacred Spring by archaeologists. These curse tablets were written in Latin, and usually laid curses on people by whom the writer felt they had been wronged. For example, if a citizen had his clothes stolen at the baths, he would write a curse, naming the suspects, on a tablet to be read by the Goddess Sulis Minerva.

The curses...

The recreation of the complex as it would have been in the Roman times.

The temple was constructed in 60–70 AD and the bathing complex was gradually built up over the next 300 years. During the Roman occupation of Britain, and possibly on the instructions of Emperor Claudius, engineers drove oak piles into the mud to provide a stable foundation and surrounded the spring with an irregular stone chamber lined with lead. In the 2nd century, the spring was enclosed within a wooden barrel-vaulted building, which housed the calidarium (hot bath), tepidarium (warm bath), and frigidarium (cold bath). The city was given defensive walls, probably in the 3rd century. After the Roman withdrawal in the first decade of the 5th century, the baths fell into disrepair and were eventually lost due to silting up.
Source: Wikipedia

Waters from the spring.....

View of the Bath Abbey from the Roman Bath.

b) The Bath Abbey - is simply gorgeous. It has beautiful stained glass windows, ornate ceilings, notable memorials and we were lucky to view the beautiful collection of the Bath Abbey diptychs.

The Abbey Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, Bath, commonly known as Bath Abbey, is an Anglican parish church and a former Benedictine monastery in Bath, Somerset, England. Founded in the 7th century, reorganised in the 10th century and rebuilt in the 12th and 16th centuries, it is one of the largest examples of Perpendicular Gothic architecture in the West Country.
The church is cruciform in plan, seating approximately 1,200 people. It is used for religious services, secular civic ceremonies and lectures. The abbey is a grade I listed building and is an active place of worship, with hundreds of congregation members and hundreds of thousands of visitors each year. The building contains monuments to several notable people. It has two organs and a peal of ten bells.
Source: Wikipedia

The Bath Abbey

Various tombstones.....

The beautiful stained glass windows

The ornate ceiling.

One Man's Journey to Heaven

c) The Jane Austin museum - a must for all lovers of Jane Austen's works. It made me promise myself that I would reread her works.

"They arrived in Bath. Catherine was all eager delight; her eyes were here, there, everywhere, as they approached its fine and striking environs, and afterwards drove through those streets which conducted them to the hotel. She was come to be happy, and she felt happy already. They were soon settled in comfortable lodgings in Pultney Street". - Northanger Abbey

The Centre at 40 Gay Street in Bath houses a permanent exhibition which tells the story of Jane's experience in the city between 1801 and 1806 and the effect that living here had on her and her writing. Gay Street is the ideal location for the Jane Austen Centre in Bath, set between two of Bath's architectural masterpieces, Queen Square and the Circus. Jane Austen actually lived in Gay Street (higher up the hill on the same side, at No.25) for some months in 1805.

http://www.janeausten.co.uk/

d) The Royal Crescent - It evokes images of horse drawn carriages and Victorian ladies taking a turn.......

The Royal Crescent is a residential road of 30 houses, laid out in a crescent, in the city of Bath, England. Designed by the architect John Wood the Younger and built between 1767 and 1774, it is among the greatest examples of Georgian architecture to be found in the United Kingdom and is a grade I listed building. The houses have been home to various notable people for over 200 years. Changes have been made to the interiors, however the facade remains much as it was when it was built. The Royal Crescent now include a hotel and museum with some of the houses being converted into flats and offices. The buildings have been used as a location for several films and television programmes.
Source: Wikipedia

The famed Crescent

e) Sally Lunn's House - Everyone who visits Bath tends to return with a Sally Lunn's Bun!

A Sally Lunn bun is a traditional version of a manchet, a traditional English yeast bread originating from Bath in the West Country of England.

The recipe for this bun is said to have originated in Bath with the arrival in 1680 of a Huguenot immigrant called Solange (Sollie) Luyon who brought her native skill and worked at a Bath bakery - this bakery is now known as Sally Lunn's House and can be visited today with the original recipe buns available for sale or consumption in the dining rooms. Sally Lunn is a corruption of her name and the bun became a very popular delicacy in Georgian England as its taste and lightness allowed it to be enjoyed with either sweet or savoury accompaniments.
Source: Wikipedia

After spending the day at Bath, we decided to head to Bristol to meet with Maryann's friend. Bristol is a very historic city, rich in culture, architecture and is a university and seafaring town. Today it hosts some major industry such as aerospace and media.

We had a quick driving tour through Bristol where I managed to take some pictures. But clearly, the city is intriguing and I have to go back for a longer visit.

The floating harbour

The seafood risotto

Thai fish cakes