Wednesday 19th March: British Museum: Leicester Square and the Criterion

By now I'm a little tired of the same breakfast, even though they have a nice buffet with scrambled eggs, English sausage (small and plump), hash browns, and even baked beans!  So I chose two different cereals and milk, there was fruit available and plenty of milk with some good bread to toast and butter and jam but, alas, no peanut butter here.  The coffee is very good, two different juices (orange and apricot), various scones, rolls and surprisingly good cheeses, apparently an European breakfast essential? There was also fruit salad, grapefruit slices and yogurt. It's a good way to start the day.


Wednesday we have set aside for the British Museum, an easy bus ride from the hotel, straight east on Bayswater, which turns into Oxford Street, past Selfridge's and all the shops, to Bloomsbury, only a few miles.

Evie in front of British Museum

The museum is dedicated to human history and culture, and its collection "is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence and originates from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its beginnings to the present." (Wikipedia)

The original museum opened in 1759 and had to be expanded multiple times before they finally had to demolish it; the current building was completed in stages, beginning in 1823 and finished in 1857.  The style is Greek Revival, the facade is finished in Portland Stone and granite from South England; a special tramway was built to transport it and other additions followed, and today it is one of the largest museums in the world.

The Museum housed the British Library for most of the century and featured a famous circular reading room but they ran out of room (over a mile of new shelf space required each year!). In the late 90's they moved the library to a new building and used the space for a new and beautiful glass roofed "Great Court" which opened in 2000. At two acres, it is the largest covered public space in Europe. The natural history collection was spun off to the separate museum in the 1880's, now one of the world's great collections in itself.

My shot of "Great Court"

Web shot of same court, much wider angle lens!

There is a new reading room in the center building but it was undergoing yet another remodel when we were there and not open.

Web image of Reading Room when open

 

Video of expanse of the Great Court

They had the original Rosetta Stone on display, many Greek statues and friezes from the Parthenon, some Aztec and Chinese items, lots of Egyptian artifacts, including the mummy of Cleopatra.

The famous Elgin room, with salvaged friezes and marbles from the Parthenon. Elgin gleaned permission from the Sultan for his artists to remove the Parthenon marbles at his own expense which would have been otherwise destroyed in those times.

Beautiful Greek sculpture

The original Rosetta Stone (discovered in 1800) enabled deciphering of Egyptian hieroglyphs.

We spent nearly 4 hours perusing the objects, too many to absorb in one trip. We didn't even get to a great many of the rooms and had no time really for studying anything in greatdetail. There was a large room devoted exclusively to Chinese ancient pottery ware and a much smaller room with some Aztec artifacts.

Chinese pottery

Aztec mask of the "Fire Serpent".

We had lunch in the little coffee shop in one corner of the Great Hall. Excellent food: We had great sandwiches on fresh baguettes. Reasonably priced with open seating at large tables, it was a very necessary respite.

Cafe corner under the dome

We finally left late in the afternoon and took a bus from the museum down to Piccadilly Circus, that word being a corruption of the Latin word for "circle". I always wondered about that, having read so many John LeCarre novels that mention them. There are a number of big intersections in London bearing the title of Circus. Each of the buildings at the four corners is concave and there is generally a monument in the middle and a roundabout street intersection.

We walked from there through the big shopping district, doing some window shopping and being shocked at the prices! We were headed to a famous jazz club that Evie used to frequent, Ronnie Scott's in Soho,  to see if we could get tickets for a show that evening, but when we finally found it, we were informed that the show was sold out! Rats! I was so hoping to see some live music at a club in London!

We found our way to the famous Leicester Square (pronounced Lester), the very center of the West End district of playhouses and theatres. We had dinner at a modest place right on the square called Muriel's, right in front of the statue of Shakespeare.

Muriel's on Leicester Square

The Bard resting

I had a version of Fish and Chips using Haddock instead of Cod (I couldn't tell the difference), but it was good and not very expensive. I was shocked when they wouldn't accept my American Express (AE) card: fortunately, I also brought a Visa card but prefer to use the AE, so I was a bit peeved over that. I found out that AE has exorbitant vendor fees and is the number one card in Europe used in frauds, making vendors less likely to accept it for payment.  .

We then walked to one of the theaters only a block away and chose to see "The 39 Steps", billed as a comedy.  Most of the theaters have the usual fare, Lion King, Les Miserable, one of the new additions is War Horse (already saw the movie) and such, any of which we could see as they came to Sacramento or in the movies so I thought this would be a good local alternative.  They also refused to accept AE, so Evelyn had to use her card at L25 each ticket.  The theater was old and very pretty inside, small, but with boxes on the sides and three levels. It was called The Criterion and the building was from the 1880's.

The Criterion theater off Leicester Square

The interior before the play

The play turned out to be a funny adaptation of the original Hitchcock movie from 1935, with five actors, four of which played multiple parts, some at the same time!  To show a train journey, they had a small toy train cross the stage, to sound effects.  It was good, and gave us a taste of small theater rather than the giant production pieces.  We're hoping to see Agatha Christie's  "The Moustrap", apparently the longest running play on Earth, but that will have to wait until we return from the countryside where we are headed on Friday morning.

After the play, we had a short walk to the tube entrance although many steps down to the train. then off that line and quite a walk, all via stairs and passages underground to the connecting tube line that takes us to within a few steps of the hotel.  I think we made it back by 11pm.  We watched some news on the tele (not referred to as TV in these parts) which was still completely dominated by speculation about the missing Malaysian plane. The cable in the hotel is good with lots of choices and an amazing number of American sitcoms on; the Wi-fi is free and robust so that I can continue to blog. To bed around midnight!