We arrived in London in time for a late dinner. We checked into our hotel. The formal tour was over, but we had an extra day and a half. We checked into our hotel and walked to a nearby pub, The Cambridge Arms. The next morning we walked to the Natural History Museum.
The morning flew by a world-renowned science research center and public museum housing over 80 million specimens spanning 4.5 billion years of Earth’s history. It is celebrated both for its massive prehistoric collections and its breathtaking Romanesque Revival architecture, often described as a “cathedral to nature”.
After a late lunch, we took the Tube to Leicester Square, which is the center of London cinema. There we got half priced tickets to the theater and pre-theater dinner. At the center of the square is a statue of William Shakespeare surrounded by dolphins. Then we went back to St Martin’s in the Field in Trafalgar Square.: Completed in 1726, its temple-style classical portico combined with a towering central spire heavily influenced church architecture, especially throughout North America. They have an aware-wining cafe in the crypt. Set among original 18th-century brick-vaulted ceilings and historic grave markers lining the floor, it provides affordable meals and regularly hosts evening jazz, cabaret, and folk music events.
Then it was back to the hotel to rest and get ready for the evening theater. We went to the Covent Garden station to find the restaurant, Porter’s. We had an address, but no one seemed to know where the street was. Finally we found someone who knew it and directed us to it correctly. We had a great British meal and chatted with two ladies at the table next to us. They were visiting from somewhere up north and going to the theater too. Our tickets were for Dirty Rotten Scoundrels at the Savoy Theater. It was a good performance and great fun. Afterward, we took the Tube home. We made good use of our day passes.
Our last day started with another museum, the Victorial and Albert Museum, the world’s largest museum of decorative arts and design..The exhibit we wanted to see especially was Britain: One Million Years of the Human Story. It was a comprehensive study of the intriguing human past of Britain, including information on when people arrived and where they came from. It was very interesting and well done. We looked at many other exhibits too including the botany, entomology, mineralogy, paleontology, and zoology wings. They had a great dinosaur collection too. In all the museum houses a permanent collection of over four and a half million objects.
After another educational experience, we grabbed lunch the “world’s oldest museum restaurant” right in the museum. Then it was back to the hotel to pack.
Overall it was a wonderful trip, but we barely had time to scratch the surface. We saw so much. Now we ween to return and go deeper.
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