Friday Dec 12: Divided and Conquered

Friday morning, up at 9:30. Even so, we still didn’t make it to the Tower until 11:30. Our warder, the charmingly named Dickey Dell, relished his job, and especially liked telling the gory details of the hangings and beheadings that took place there. He mentioned the Norman invasion of 1066. He said it’s been hard, but they’re slowly getting over it. The Tower is the number one tourist attraction in London, and it is a great time. The building itself is awesome, and the beefeaters do a great job.

From there we split up; Amy and Ginny headed to the Cabinet War Rooms, Polly and the kids to Hamley’s Toy Store, and me to Banqueting House and possibly the Elgin marbles, if there was time.

Banqueting House is a wonderful place. It’s used for state dinners now, but it used to be part of the palace used by Charles I. It’s basically a large room, hardwood floors and lots of windows. But the ceiling is the great part. Rubens painted it in 1622. It depicts the connection between God and the King. When Cromwell’s Commonwealth briefly replaced the monarchy, the king walked through that room and led out of a window. There, in front of a huge crowd, they beheaded him. Fittingly enough, the restoration of the monarchy took place there also when both houses of Parliament watched the coronation of Charles II.

I passed by the Horse Guards and snapped a few pictures on my way to the British Museum.

As I walked, I realized I had a rock or something in my shoe. It was kind of big. I sat down in the Great Court and reached into my shoe. What a perfect specimen of the obnoxious American I must have been. I pulled the offending object out of my shoe. It was a one-pound coin. I have no idea how it got in there. It had to have been in there all day. I dropped my smelly pound into one of the museum’s donation boxes.

The British Museum is where they keep the Elgin Marbles, fragments of friezes and statues from the Parthenon. They are quite controversial because Lord Elgin went down to Athens and basically stole these pieces. He paid some paltry amount and then they loaded them all up on a ship and brought them to London. They don’t really feel too bad about it, a pamphlet from the museum said, because “experts agree, it would not be possible to reattach them to the original structure.”

They are quite cool. The friezes depict a procession of peasants and civic dignitaries approaching the Gods, who are seated on thrones. Lots of horses and livestock, too. The marbles inspired many British poets, including Keats and Casement, who mentioned the ox lowing to the moon.

I returned to the flat in time to shower and head out with Polly for dinner. We went to a French place called “Le Cercle.” It had no sign except for its name etched on the tiny sliding glass front door. We went down a twisting staircase to the warm dining room. I told Polly each dish was so good it almost made me cry. I had poached cod, beef tartare, and pate. Each course had wine with it; and they were all fantastic.

We stopped off for a pint at the Tea Clipper and called it a night. It was a great day, our last in Jolly Old England.