A London Weekend
Posted 3 October-
It seemed like a good idea to share with you a bit of what our London weekends are like, so we'll describe what we did the first weekend in October. On Friday night, after Chuck got home from the office, we made a spur of the moment decision to try to get theater tickets right at a theater box office. (Just before the show, they make tickets available to seniors at a special price -- about 1/3 instead of the 1/2 price at the half-price booths.) We went to the Fortune Theater to see "Woman in Black", billed as a suspenseful thriller. (It's been running for 16 years, though we'd never heard about it until we were here). The show lived up to its billing and was well-done. Kathi gave it 3.5 stars on our 5 star system -- Chuck gave it 4.5 stars. Chuck was really impressed with the craftsmanship involved in pulling off all the suspenseful moments and plot turns. In any case, it was different from any other play either of us had seen. The theater was near Covent Garden and we ate at a restaurant around the corner from there -- and decided we'd revisit Covent Garden Market the next day.
On Saturday we decided to spend a couple of hours at the British Museum. It's much too big to try to visit all at once, so we've embarked on a program of regular visits, but keeping each one to a couple of hours. (Now that they've removed the admission fee, this is practical -- it removes the feeling that you must visit to exhaustion to make it worthwhile. We regularly leave a donation to help out.)
Saturday's visit was confined to the large wing on the Enlightenment, when much about modern archeology and the scientific method was first worked out. Early in the afternoon we decided to walk to the Covent Garden Market area. (By the way, Covent Garden used to be the London flower market. In the opening scene of "My Fair Lady", Professor Higgins and Colonel Pickering are leaving the Opera House (right next to Covent Garden) when they encounter the flower girl, Eliza Doolittle, at Covent Garden.) The old market has been turned into a place of numerous shops, cafes and restaurants, right in the midst of a part of the West End theater district. When we had glimpsed it Friday night, it seemed worth coming back to, which we now did on Saturday afternoon. You can see some photos of our visit to the Museum and to Covent Garden at:
http://chuck.smugmug.com/gallery/239542.
We spent a couple of hours browsing the area, watching some of the "buskers" (sidewalk entertainers), who included mimes (of course), singers, musicians, jugglers, etc. Buskers, in fact, are a bit of an institution in central London, including in the Underground stations. When our feet gave out and the rain started, we headed back home on the Underground and went to dinner at a Swedish restaurant a couple of blocks from the flat. And so ended a Saturday of our London Sojourn.
It seemed like a good idea to share with you a bit of what our London weekends are like, so we'll describe what we did the first weekend in October. On Friday night, after Chuck got home from the office, we made a spur of the moment decision to try to get theater tickets right at a theater box office. (Just before the show, they make tickets available to seniors at a special price -- about 1/3 instead of the 1/2 price at the half-price booths.) We went to the Fortune Theater to see "Woman in Black", billed as a suspenseful thriller. (It's been running for 16 years, though we'd never heard about it until we were here). The show lived up to its billing and was well-done. Kathi gave it 3.5 stars on our 5 star system -- Chuck gave it 4.5 stars. Chuck was really impressed with the craftsmanship involved in pulling off all the suspenseful moments and plot turns. In any case, it was different from any other play either of us had seen. The theater was near Covent Garden and we ate at a restaurant around the corner from there -- and decided we'd revisit Covent Garden Market the next day.
On Saturday we decided to spend a couple of hours at the British Museum. It's much too big to try to visit all at once, so we've embarked on a program of regular visits, but keeping each one to a couple of hours. (Now that they've removed the admission fee, this is practical -- it removes the feeling that you must visit to exhaustion to make it worthwhile. We regularly leave a donation to help out.)
Saturday's visit was confined to the large wing on the Enlightenment, when much about modern archeology and the scientific method was first worked out. Early in the afternoon we decided to walk to the Covent Garden Market area. (By the way, Covent Garden used to be the London flower market. In the opening scene of "My Fair Lady", Professor Higgins and Colonel Pickering are leaving the Opera House (right next to Covent Garden) when they encounter the flower girl, Eliza Doolittle, at Covent Garden.) The old market has been turned into a place of numerous shops, cafes and restaurants, right in the midst of a part of the West End theater district. When we had glimpsed it Friday night, it seemed worth coming back to, which we now did on Saturday afternoon. You can see some photos of our visit to the Museum and to Covent Garden at:
http://chuck.smugmug.com/gallery/239542.
We spent a couple of hours browsing the area, watching some of the "buskers" (sidewalk entertainers), who included mimes (of course), singers, musicians, jugglers, etc. Buskers, in fact, are a bit of an institution in central London, including in the Underground stations. When our feet gave out and the rain started, we headed back home on the Underground and went to dinner at a Swedish restaurant a couple of blocks from the flat. And so ended a Saturday of our London Sojourn.
posted by Chuck and Kathi Calvano @ 4:19 PM
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