“Lond-on”
Easter 2008
Day 1- Mon, 17th March
I did it again: I was in London. This time on a cold after midday. I arrived from Luton airport to Victoria Station at around 3 p.m. There, I took a bus to my hotel in Paddington zone. After leaving my luggage in my room I ran to go for a quick visit to “Tate Britain”, an amazing museum of modern art.
… I suppose I am not the only one that has the sensation of living in a prison made of slow hours, slow time clutching your steps from the morning until five o´clock when suddenly, everybody is released and starts to rush to their homes or pubs. At that time or so London´s main attractions close and that´s why I had to rush, too. Days seem to be so slow as short. This is only one of the strange sensations you feel in this enigmatical cold city.
The Tate Britain museum holds historic, modern and contemporary art and the general entrance is free. This time one of the supported paid exhibitions was called “The Camden Town Group” which I really regret to have missed. It announced to show the works of a circle of innovative young painters in the bustling modern metropolis which was home for them to be named as “The Camden Group” in the London of 1910s.
After my quick visit I went to Oxford Circus zone to taste te famous “fish & chips”.
Around 8 p.m. I went back home to sleep. I was really tired…
Day 2- Tu, 18th March
I got up very early in the morning. At 7:30 I was at the hotel dinning room to taste the traditional “English Breakfast”: fried egg, ham, beans in sauce, coffee or tea, toasts, butter, marmalade, orange juice & cereals. I can´t believe my liver survived five days eating such a heavy mix of caloric food.
This day was very important because I had planned to visit the “London Tower” inside.
I took all the necessary underground combinations and arrived there near 10 pm. We were a large group of people waiting for a “Beefeater” to guide us. “Beefeater” is the popular name to call the “yeoman warders” (guardias alabarderos), the guards that custody this imposing fortress. You are entertained by captivating tales: passion, treachery, torture and pain in big amounts of black humour. You smile all the time as these guards have that natural vein to act and entertain, the histrionical strange blood in English race.
The warders guided the group making an introduction to all the things we could see. After some time they said good bye and we could go to visit each place on our own without following any specific order.
THE TOWER
The fortress is divided in 43 places, so you can spend half of the day visiting it!. You can see different towers, museums or go to the shops or for a coffee. Streets and places closed to the public also counts in this list. It is very difficult to remember exactly all the places that you have entered to, but these are more or less the ones I can remember:
Bloody Tower
Chapel Royal of St. Peter ad Vincula
Cradle Tower
Lanthorn Tower
Martin Tower
Salt Tower
Traitor´s gate
Wakefield tower
Waterloo Block (Crown Jewels)
Torture at the tower
Medieval Palace
East Wall Walk
Scaffold site
Beauchamp tower
White Tower
In the Beauchamp Tower you can see the graffities left by famous prisoners five hundred years ago. They were carved between 1532 and 1672.
You can read short simple lines like “In god is my hope” up to deep thoughts as this one that caught my attention:
“Better is to be in the house of mourning than in the house of banqueting. The house of the wise is in the mourning house. It is much better to have something chastening than to have overmuch liberty. There is a time for all things, a time to be born, and a time to die, and the day of death is better than the day of birth. There is an end of all things and the end of a thing is better than the beginning. Be wise and patient in trouble for wisdom defendeth as well as money. Use well the time of prosperity and remember the time of misfortune”
(William Rame- 2 April 1559)
In the infamous Bloody Tower you can solve the mistery of who murdered the Little Princes. Treachery stories are contained here! And you also can count your vote in a multimedia game!
In the Wakefield Tower you can feel chills looking at the instruments of torture. There are no words to describe pain.
The Crown Jewels House, is where you can see the astonishing collection of Coronations.
It is the place that any woman dreams of visiting! You are dazzled by diamonds, pearls, sapphires, emeralds and rubies from the 17th century up to these days. The crowns of all Britain´s queens and kings are here!.
This place is highly custodied. You can not take pictures here. It suffered only one attempt of robbery in history.
The White Tower is an extraordinary place to see the impressive collection of weaponry and is the house for the Roayl Armouries.
After delighting yourself with medieval weapons, costums, paintings, rooms you also can interact with games based in medieval weapons: take the weigh of spades, hammers, archs… Use them, shoot them. Get explanations, similarities, differences.
This was one of the places I liked most!
The Medieval Palace is a place to discover how was life at that times. You can see live performances with actors playing the lives of Henry III, Edward I and their court.
They even come to you and talk to you! It is a very funny moment.
The ravens: they are everywhere! They even can fly near, just above your head! These horrible black creatures are believed to be there to custody the jewels. The legend says that Charles II believed that if they left the Tower, the fortress and the kingdom would fall.
The first three days it didn´t rain and the sun was there from time to time, anyway, the days were cold and I was tired. It was a non stop walking, I didn´t want to rest, so I left the Tower and at 4 in the afternoon I rushed to visit the Charles Dickens Museum in Russell Square zone.
CHARLES DICKENS MUSEUM
There was nobody inside… after a while a woman with a baby entered the place. Everything was silence… you approached to the intimacy of the different places of a house that was home to this great writer once. Sofas, pianos, mirrors, papers and paper baskets. An amazing library is in the basement of the house. The first publications, pictures, drawing and thoughts ornamenting the walls…
I looked everything with a sense of respect and pain. I took some pictures of the lines that touched my heart:
“No words can explain the secret agony of my soul as I sunk into this companionship; compared these every day associates with those of my happier childhood; and felt my early hopes of growing up to be a learned and distinguished man, crushed in my breast.”
-Charles Dickens as a boy in the blacking factory-
“I mention the circumstance because it illustrates, to me, my early interest in observing people. When I went to the Marshalsea of a night, I was always delighted to hear from my mother what she knew about the histories of the different debtors in the prison”
-Dickens later recounting a real occurrence at the prison, which he had used in David Copperffield, to his friend John Forster-
Amongst all the things that you can observe in the museum, there is a room devoted to the women that took part in the writer´s life. There is one bed of a girl that died too young and who inspired him many fragments in his novels. It is said that he suffered very much because of this girl, who was his friend and he wanted very much. There is also a door with a beautiful knocker and the explanation says: “Door knocker from Dickens´ Childhood Home in Bayham Street, Camden Town”.
I left the place feeling that strange peace that only writers can transmit. Inside the silence, outside the hectic pace of life, the underground, the wind hitting your face…
At 6 p.m. the vanity knocked my door. I instantly forgot the deep world I had been in and went to visit the famous shop “Harrods”.
… Imagine entering to a paradise of elegance, an oasis of luxury ornamented by goods you will never purchase until you win the lottery! It´s a pleasure for the eyes and a pity to your pockets. The most exclusive- expensive brands, designs and goods are here!
Day 3- Wed, 19th March
I tasted my traditional English breakfast at early morning. I wanted to do the free London walking tours, so I took a bus to Trafalgar square expecting to find a guide and a group of people. I didn´t but discovered the “National Portrait Gallery” by pure chance.
This time supported a paid exhibition of Vanity Fair magazine. I saw a picture of Madonna for Evita movie and immediately knew I wanted to enter there. Anyway, I didn´t see this one, I saw the free general exhibitions.
The gallery is divided more or less in the following sections:
The Tudors
17th century
18th century
Late 18th century and early 19th century,
The Victorians
Early 20th century,
Britain since 1990
… special exhibitions and displays.
What it really blew up my mind was an exibition called “BRILLIANT WOMEN”.It was about a group of women and some men that was named as “THE BLUESTOCKING CIRCLE” in the 19th century. It started like an informal way of sociability amongst writers, artist & thinkers who met in their London homes. It was based on a shared love of learning. The name comes from the blue woollen stocking normally worn by working men.
Elizabeth Montagu -Shakespeare´s critic- was the leading hostess of this circle. She was named as the “Queen of the blues” by writer Samuel Johnson.
Amongst other personalities this circle nurtured a busy intellectual life by women like early feminist Mary Wollstonecraft, the artist Angelica Kauffman or the historian Catherine Macaulay.
In the other rooms you could see contemporary works. Amongst many curiosities, there were photographs taken by Bryan Adams, yes, the singer! In fact, he photographed interesting women and has a book called “American Women 2005″.
Other room held the fantastic pictures of famous photographers like Mario Testino, Mario Sorrenti, Paolo Roversi, Elaine Constantine and Corine Day.
Definetely, National Portrait Gallery it´s a pleasure for the eyes, it´s a temple of beauty, colour and perfection in all the possible forms.
Later in the afternoon I went for a quick visit to Big Ben, the famous clock, this zone is full of tourists, as most of London zones, of course. Westminster bridge, where I walked for a long time and took pictures of the river Thames and London eye, (… It wasn´t strange when a man called me “Bella Ragazza”, this happens everytime I dress myself with my Juventus jacket -the jacket of Italian football team-, there´s always some Italian who thinks I am Italian and tells me something. It is very funny and never fails!).
Wetminster abbey and Houses of Parliament are near too. I didn´t enter to the abbey which wasn´t for free, but to St Margaret´s church instead.
I suddenly went to another very different zone: Notting Hill in the west end zone.
This area is a fantastic place full of trees & nature. The houses are beautiful and elegant. To make a contrast with this view, you find many retro & second hand shops in the main street and prices are lower than in other parts.
“West end” is the zone that is full of theatres.
My last visit this day was to Baker Street, famous for being the stop for Madam Tussaud and Sherlock Holmes Museums.
Day 4- Thu, 20th March
This was a very special day. I had to go to The Cure concert in Wembley Arena stadium in the afternoon.
In the morning I visited Picadilly Circus zone, Covent Garden (where I finally saw the market stalls!) and St. Paul´s church.
At midday I went to Leceister Square and entered to the “Little Italy” restaurant. Pizza & tea, that´s what I orderd for lunch!
The day was rainy and colder than the previous ones…
At about 6 pm I was at Wembley Park underground station.
The concert started near 8 and lasted until 11: 15 more or less.
Went back to the hotel passing midnight. Terribly tired, thirsty and hungry!
Day 5- Fri, 21st March
I couldn´t leave London without going to my place, my home, my strange palace, Camden Town. I walked and walked. I bought some things, I had a quick lunch, I entered to a cyber, I took pictures.
Amongst the curious anecdotes I remember, a woman approached to me near Camden Market. She said “Do you speak English?”, “yes, of course” I said. She said to need 1.80 to go to Victoria station. She was a homeless. “A long story” she said, “drugs… a man… I lost everything”, her mum was in Scotland dying of cancer. I observed her, she had many hurts and scars on her face. She apologised about asking me money. I felt pity. I said: “I don´t have change, let´s go for a coffee or something, I change and give you the money”. She shook her hand and said “Emma”, “Victoria”, I replied, and she stood quite for a second and added “and you have my same hair colour, and you are very pretty”. We went to a shop, I told her to pick up some soft drink. Changed 10 pounds and gave her 2. I told her many times “I hope this is not for beer or drugs…”. She promised it wasn´t.
“London is not what people think”, she said…
It is true: London has two faces, the elegant, powerful and rich- the poor, miserable and torturing. It´s a place of hard contrasts.
In the afternoon I went to St. Paul´s Cathedral which was closed. Finished my day drinking beer at Covent Garden. I was sad… very sad…
Those pints of “Stella Artois” made me sleep like a baby!
A phone call from my friend E. from de USA woke me up. I needed to hear that voice.
The hotel was in complete silence, it was late, very late at night… outside it was raining and cold. I suddenly miss that comfortable warm bed… and think in that group of punkies I had taken a photo in Camden that same day in the afternoon. One of them came to me and said: “Ginger, ginger, don´t you have some money for beer?”.
He laughed, I laughed and said I didn´t. He took me by surprise…
Day 6- Sat, 22nd March
My last day. In the morning I went to visit Victoria & Albert Museum, Science museum and Royal Albert Hall. All in South Kensington zone.
V & A museum it´s more than marvelous. It is very big so it is impossible to visit entirely. It holds art from all the epoques and parts of the planet. The science museum it´s extremely interesting. You can approach to all the transport and enginneer works that British people held through history: steam machines, trains, boats, planes…
As a curiosity, Royal Alert Hall is where fans could see Robert & Siouxsie in 1983 for Nocturne album concert. It´s a royal place in honour of Queen´s Victoria´s husband: prince Albert.
This last day I was so excited as sad… but I can guess I will never stop visiting this city. I know there is something between me and that place. This second time I couldn´t believe people were so nice to me again. Women left their supermarket bags to indicate me directions, there was a girl who entered to a hotel to ask for the street I asked her. I am not used to feel that in the city I live, and I live in a city full of tourists, where it is supposed people are used to be kind to foreigners.
The mistery is not solved, but alive and calling.
-Passing midday I was at Luton airport again, it started to snow… the wind was freezing, the door of the plane was open and the snow was blowing inside the plane, the flight attendants laughed and tried to put it away until the door was closed-
My memories were freezed for a moment. I took my last mental picture of England. I wrote another temporary good bye in the air. The ink of my heart rained over the sky when I looked through the foggy window of the plane…
