London – Day 6 – Westminster Cathedral vs Westminster Abbey

Posted on December 4, 2018 by Mama Cormier

…..I had no idea that they were two different churches

The main difference is that the cathedral is Roman Catholic and the Abbey is part of the Church of England. Also the cathedral is much newer. It was built in 1903 and is the largest Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales. One of the things that struck us as odd about the interior of the cathedral is how dark the ceiling in the main part of the church is. According to the guide at the entrance, the ceiling is almost black because the main lighting source when it was first built consisted of candles and the soot from the them has darkened the interior. I thought that was odd, considering how wealthy the Catholic Church is but according to history churches built in the early 1900s had to be debt free before they could be consecrated. The interior of the cathedral was never completed but it was consecrated none the less in 1910.

The cathedral is built in the Byzantine style.

The Abbey on the other hand is much older. It was first constructed in 1245 and was originally Catholic. Henry VIII changed that when the Catholic Church wouldn’t grant him a divorce and he formed the Church of England. In 1560 Queen Elizabeth I re-established Westminster as a “Royal Peculiar” – a church of the Church of England responsible directly to the Sovereign, rather than to a diocesan bishop.

We didn’t get in line to see the inside of the Abbey but my cousin in Germany has convinced me that when we go back we need to take the tour. It sounds fascinating and worth the money. It is certainly rich in history.

In the next post I will continue with day 6 and describe our walk along the Thames River.

London Day 5 – Just the Two of Us

Posted on December 3, 2018 by Mama Cormier

….after 4 days with Mom and Papa we decided to give the girls a break

Today Kevin and I ventured out on our own while Andrea and Josie did their own thing. We got on the Tube and made our way to the Bloomsbury District of London. The Tube by the way is the name of London’s subway system because it is shaped like a tube.

The Underground is divided into nine zones: central London is covered by zone 1.
There are 11 Tube lines.
The Tube fare depends on how far you travel, time of day, and how you pay.

The Underground platforms lie anywhere from 41m to 58m below street level. The longest escalator at the Angel station is 60 m or 200 ft. long. All day long the PA system sends out PSAs warning people about the dangers on the escalators and advising commuters to keep to the right side.

The first stop we made on this day was at the British Museum. We were there in the middle of the week and so were hundreds of school children. This museum was built in 1753 and is a public institution dedicated to human history, art and culture.

Some of the objects that we saw included Japanese art forms from Manga cartoons to wood cut prints and sculptures made from clay, bronze and glass.

We also visited the Iraq display where we saw the Cyrus Cylinder.

We passed on seeing the Rosetta Stone because there was a class of children in the line ahead of us and my husband just wanted to leave at that point. We made our way across the street and decided to grab some lunch at a pub.

One of our biggest disappointments in London was the lack of independent pubs. Many of the pubs belong to a chain called Greene King and when you walk into one it is pretty obvious that it is part of the chain. It seems they all have the same menu and alcohol selection. The first one we ate in was situated across the street from the museum. The food was good but later during our trip we found it difficult to find a pub with a different menu.

Around the block from the pub we discovered this wonderful art gallery called the Contemporary Ceramic Centre. We were immediately drawn to the window by the display of Sophie Favre’s figurative sculptures. At the front and back of the gallery dozens of her animated sculptures greeted us with their human-like qualities.

These creatures certainly brought a smile to my face.

Thursday Doors – More From London

Posted on November 29, 2018 by Mama Cormier

….thanks to Norm for hosting Thursday Doors

All these doors are in the South Kensington area of London. The Queens Gate Lodge was owned by the Museum of Natural History and was built in 1883 to accommodate an engineer and messenger who worked at the museum. This tiny 2-bedroom house sits in Hyde Park just inside the Queen’s Gate and can be yours for a mere 6 706 000 pounds. When I first saw the sign at the gate to the house I actually thought that it belonged to the Queen. It wasn’t till I returned home and started to research the place that I discovered that the place was named after the famous gate that leads into the park and has nothing to do with Her Majesty.

Wordless Wednesday – November 28, 2018

Posted on November 28, 2018 by Mama Cormier

V&A courtyard, London, England

Silent Sunday – November 25, 2018

Posted on November 25, 2018 by Mama Cormier

…..last evening in London…view of St. Paul’s as we were leaving the Tate Modern

Doors in London

Posted on November 22, 2018 by Mama Cormier

….from the ordinary to the grandiose

Doors in London have a great deal of character and charm. Here are some that I discovered in Soho, Highgate and Camden Market.

London – Day 4, Part 2

Posted on November 22, 2018 by Mama Cormier

…..Diana’s Memorial Fountain, Albert Memorial in Kensington Gardens, the V & A and happy birthday to my sweetie

While walking along the Serpentine we came across Princess Diana’s Memorial Fountain. It was officially opened in 2004 by Queen Elizabeth and the opening was attended by Prince Charles, her two sons and her brother Charles Spencer. It was the first time in seven years that the Spencers and the Windsors came together to honour Diana.

The fountain itself was designed by an American, Kathryn Gustafson. She had wanted the fountain, which was built to the south of the Serpentine, to be accessible and to reflect Diana’s “inclusive” personality.

From the fountain we walked further west towards Kensington Gardens where we came across the Albert Memorial. From the size of the memorial you would have thought that Albert had been a king but it was commissioned by Queen Victoria in memory of her beloved husband Prince Albert, who died in 1861. The memorial was designed by Sir George Gilbert Scott.

After Kensington Gardens we headed south to meet up with my husband Kevin and our son, Brendan. Brendan is a curator at the Victoria and Albert Museum.

The V&A is the world’s leading museum of art and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.3 million objects that span over 5,000 years of human creativity. The Museum holds many of the UK’s national collections and houses some of the greatest resources for the study of architecture, furniture, fashion, textiles, photography, sculpture, painting, jewellery, glass, ceramics, book arts, Asian art and design, theatre and performance. (copied from the V&A website – www.vam.ac.uk)

Brendan gave us a wonderful personal tour of some of his favourite rooms at the museum.

The last five photos were taken in the casting room. The gold leaf that you see here was used to cover the private parts of the statue, David, whenever Queen Victoria would come to visit the museum.

Opened in 1873, the Cast Courts display copies of some of the world’s most significant works of art reproduced in plaster, electrotype, photography, and digital media. The cast collection is famous for including reproductions of Michelangelo’s David, Trajan’s Column, and Ghiberti’s Gates of Paradise, amongst many others.(copied from the V&A website).

Brendan explained to us that the whole idea of making these copies was to bring the world to the people at a time when most people couldn’t afford to travel to exotic places. Over the years these copies have become invaluable reproductions because many of the original pieces have been damaged or disappeared because of environmental factors or conflict.

It’s impossible to see everything in this museum in one visit. I went back a couple more times I was in London.

After an exhausting day of walking we went back to our apartment to rest and freshen up. October 2nd is Kevin’s birthday so Brendan and Azadeh booked a reservation at a restaurant in Central London called Polpo Smithfield. We had a wonderful time sharing numerous plates of delicious Venetian food.

31 Inspirations – Curves

Posted on November 17, 2018 by Mama Cormier

….thanks to Wits End for the hosting Photography Inspirations for November

A Photo a Week Challenge – Reflection

Posted on November 10, 2018 by Mama Cormier

….since there is no new challenge this week I decided to go back to Nancy Merrill’s blog and check out which challenge I’d missed

The challenge that I missed was Reflection

London – Day 4 (Harrods, Hyde Park)

Posted on November 7, 2018 by Mama Cormier

….day four was another busy day with lots of walking

Today my Andrea, Josie and I headed to Harrods and Hyde Park. We left Kevin at home to rest and agreed to meet up later in the afternoon.

Harrods is probably one of the most famous stores in London. It is not centrally located and is about a mile from Kensington in the area known as Knightsbridge. Knightsbridge is a very exclusive area, one of the wealthiest parts of London where some of London’s most expensive hotels are situated. Needless to say that we didn’t go there to shop but merely to look around. The food hall was most interesting and beautifully set up with gorgeous display cases of chocolates and pastries and the seafood was displayed on mounds of ice in the most attractive way.

While we were there we were told about the Egyptian escalators that were built in 1998 to reflect the Edwardian style of the building. Harrods built the first ever escalator in the UK in 1898. Nervous customers using the contraption were offered brandy when they reached the top to help them recover from their “ordeal”.

From Harrods we walked over to Hyde Park and walked along the Serpentine Lake. People actually swim in this lake along with the local ducks, geese and swans.

The installation art that you see in the lake is from the world famous artist, Christo, who unveiled his work The London Mastaba (2018) earlier in June. It is a 20-metre-high floating sculpture on London’s Serpentine Lake, constructed from 7,506 oil drums.