Maida Vale tube station
inside the tube London
We rode the tube! We rode the tube everywhere we went.
It’s so easy. One time we took a bus—that was the first day
when I arrived. I took a little nap, even though the books
tell you not to (to adjust to jet lag), and then we went out
and caught a good choice bus that made a pretty good
city tour just riding around. We passed Hyde Park and
since it was one of the first nice spring days there were
plenty of people enjoying the sun:
Hyde Park London
See the horse head sculpture by Nic Fiddian-Green? Are you
clicking on the photos to enlarge?
Then we went to Liberty Department Store and bought
some little things—an address book! and a sewing
pincushion shaped like a crown: (big spender)
Liberty Department Store London
If you’ve been reading these London posts, you know that
we went to bookstores, libraries, flea markets, button
stores, the Tate Britain Museum and the Punch & Judy
show. What else did we do? I’ll try to be brief.
We went to “Wicked” at the Apollo Victoria Theater in the
West End. I had gotten tickets before I left on my trip
and it was great fun, with the lobby lights all in a spooky
green. Good witch, bad witch. Best song was “I’m Not
That Girl”.
We went to a Sunday morning service at Westminster
Abbey and sat adjacent to the altar for a lovely view of
the whole church with its choir stalls with red shaded lamps.
Beautiful choir. And I imagined that I was present at a
coronation or perhaps a royal wedding. Afterwards we
went to the gift shop! where I bought a deck of cute royal
kings and queens playing cards:
deck of playing cards, English royalty
And then we went around the corner to have lunch at
The Sanctuary House pub.
On a Saturday evening we went to St Martin-in-the-
Fields Church to hear the Mozart Requiem. We had
enjoyed a nice little supper downstairs at The Crypt
Cafe! I like the new east window by an Iranian artist
Shirazeh Houshiary:
East window at the St Martin-in-the-Fields Church London
This was a replacement window done recently and the
choice of designer caused discussion at the time. You
might want to read about it online. At any rate, it is
certainly a distinctive work.
We went to the Opera!
It was presented by the English National Opera at
the London Coliseum–what a beautiful setting:
London Coliseum
London Coliseum
Ah, Mimi! Musette! Delightful evening! Then we went
for a late night dessert at La Roche Cafe.
I’ll finish this post with maybe the best show of all . . .
The Mousetrap by Agatha Christie! Yes, it’s still
playing after sixty-some years. Great fun. I read the
first act of the play before we went and put the book
down so that I’d be surprised—and I was! We’re not
allowed to tell who did it–after the curtain, one of the
actors asked the audience to keep it a secret!
lobby at St Martins Theatre–The Mousetrap
The show was a matinee, so afterwards, starving, we
went to Bella Italia Restaurant nearby–yummy.
That’s all for now.
