Showing posts with label London. Show all posts
Showing posts with label London. Show all posts

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

London Day 8 - Greenwich

Last day!  Took a trip to Greenwich to check out Longitude 0 at the Royal Observatory and see the  Royal Naval College.



Yes I know I should have worn better shoes for this pic, but it was pretty cool to stand on either side of the Prime Meridian!

What was exciting to me was to see the Harrison's 4 generations of Longitude instruments.  Harrison won the competition about how to accurately measure longitude and the 4th generation looks like a pocket watch.  I didn't have pictures of H3 and H4 because they didn't turn out well because of lighting and reflections.  If you are interested in reading the history of Longitude, you can read the book (which I have at home, which made seeing these even more interesting).

The original competition in 1713
Harrison's first generation - H1 (the winning entry)
 H2 - Harrison kept trying to improve his instrument

The Painted Chapel in the Old Naval College was beautifully painted.  I had no idea a Naval College needed such grand interiors.  The Naval College was another Christopher Wren designed project, and one of the most complex.


Then on to Greenwich Market, which was a great market, full of food, arts and crafts.  Munched away on Chorizo Sausage sandwiches, Churros, Paella and fudge.  Very healthy!! :P  Had a portrait done by a graffiti artist, as a gift from my brother in law and sister.


And so concluded my London trip.  I was glad that I managed to see a few Unesco World Heritage listed sites in my travels:

Saturday, April 7, 2012

London Day 7 - Kew Gardens

2 days left!  I thought since it was a nice day, I'd take a trip down to the Royal Botanic Garden at Kew.  This Botanical garden is home to more than 30,000 living specimens and has the largest live collection in the world.



I was more differnt bird species in those few hours than I had seen all week!  Though when you're in the city, not many birds you can see, I suppose.



 

 

And there are some amazing tree specimens there, like the Monkey Puzzle Tree, which is related to the Bunya Pine in Australia!  I wonder what its nuts would have looked like.


The Japanese part was nice, with the Pagoda and small shelter.



And how could I resist taking pictures of flowers in the Botanical Gardens?  Unfortunately there were no roses or azaleas in blossom, but there were lots of daffodils and rhododendrons, amongst others.

 

Then we wandered around the city and I took a few pictures of some of the many churches around the city.  I can see how you can get "churched" out in this place - there are 100 churches in the city alone.



I wanted to see Temple Church because it was in the book (and the movie) The Da Vinci Code.  This is the church of the Knight's Templar.  We couldn't go in because it was Good Friday and the church was not open to tourists, but I would have liked to see the effigies of the marble knights inside.


St Bride's is on Fleet Street, and thus was the church of journalists.  It was another Christopher Wren designed church (rebuilt after WWII) and is the second tallest church in London (behind St Paul's of course).  The steeple had been used as inspiration for wedding cakes.


St Stephen Walbrook church was another church rebuilt by Wren after the Great Fire in 1666.

We went out dinner at Hawksmoor, a popular steak joint in London.  The back of the menu had some interesting facts!


We ordered 1.2kg Bone in Prime Rib and sides of Mushrooms, Sweet Potatoes and Beef Dripping Chips, and polished up our meal with Honeycomb Cheesecake and Chocolate Mousse.  Yum!!!!

 


Friday, April 6, 2012

London Day 6 - Food and Theatre

Today it was shopping day in Mayfair because we were having lunch at another fancy restaurant.  But first we did some shopping.  The best find of the day was coming across Sotheran's in Sackville street.

There were some Gould lithographs in the window so I made my sister go in and we spent an hour poring over the Gould prints - well, it was more like I pored over them and she watched.  Now THAT would have been my ideal souvenir to take home from London!  So I bought more clothes, another bag, nearly bought a print, and then my sister and I headed to Claridges for our lunch at Gordon Ramsay at Claridges.



The interior is very art deco.  There were a lot of choices on the menu, and we decided to go with the lunch tasting menu.



Cute looking bread, there were 3 types to choose from.

Canapes

Kingfish cerviche

Pressed Foie gras, comfit of rabbit and smoked duck 

Braised Beef Featherblade

   Bream fillet

Sorbet refresher



Chocolate sphere with honeycomb - you pour the hot milk chocolate sauce on it and the sphere melts to reveal the inside. LOOKS so awesome!!

Truffles

We managed to score last minute tickets to War Horse, and I was so excited to go!  I was hoping that I wouldn't be disappointed (like I was with the Yorkshire Pudding at Trinity) and I really enjoyed it, and I nearly cried.  The puppetry is amazing, as I was told it would be.  Those Handspring Puppets were amazing.  It made the movement so much more real!