I “oh-my-godded” my way through the entire morning and most of the afternoon. Another full and mind-boggling day in Londontown. Jeff and I started at the British Museum, where we saw, in no particular order:
The Rosetta Stone (OMG!)
A monumental statue from Easter Island (OMG!), one of the enormous carved human figures with oversized heads, created sometime between the 13th & 16th centuries. And guess what, the islanders want them back.
Something else I didn’t expect to find: a round library tucked into the middle of the museum. This was the famous Reading Room, where Virginia Woolf, Karl Marx, Arthur Conan Doyle, Beatrix Potter, and countless others spent time reading, writing, and doing research (OMG!)
And that's not all.
While we were having lunch at Buvette (best chocolate mousse EVER!), we received a call from Shauna. She had somehow managed to get 2 tickets to see the Bayeux Tapestry (OMG!) We had been trying for several weeks before the trip to get tickets, but it was completely sold out until January 2027. So this was amazing! Just one problem: our tickets were time stamped for 6 p.m., but we also had tickets to see Steve Wilson at the Royal Albert Hall at 6:45. A bit of a scheduling conflict. We decided to take our chances and try to convince the guard to let us in two hours early. The first guard wouldn't budge. But after he went off duty, we tried again with a much more sympathetic guard, who let us in at 3:30. Success! Almost. We then waited in line for another nail-biting hour before we finally got to see the Tapestry. (OMG!) It is LONG. Very long. More than 75 yards of embroidered history, beautifully depicting the Battle of Hastings and the Norman Conquest of 1066. Seeing it in person gave me goosebumps. I have known about it since college, and besides, it was in France for 1000 years. It was only on loan to England because the French were renovating the building where the tapestry is normally kept and rather than putting it in storage, they loaned it to England.
See how diplomacy works?
BTW, 1066 must have been a particularly ambitious year for England. William the Conqueror established the Tower of London, Westminster Abbey was founded, and the events depicted in the Bayeux Tapestry changed the course of English history. There was a comet that year, too, and it was embroidered into the tapestry. The 4 sweet old ladies from Wales waiting in line ahead of us told us to read “1066 and All That.” They had read it as children and said if we read it, we would know everything we need to know about English history.
We arrived just in time to see the Steve Wilson concert and relax to his beautiful & innovative music. It’s hard to define but it is wonderful.
It’s past midnight. Good night!
17,356 very happy steps (ok, sometimes running) or 7.5 miles
3 Egerton Garden Mews