The National Gallery

I managed to even convince Linnea to come along to visit the National Gallery. Another museum with free admission, perfect. It wasn't as crowded as the British Museum by far, and much smaller in size.
The collection might be smaller but most major developments in Western painting are represented with an impressive show of important works.

I thoroughly enjoyed this visit, as there were so many artworks on display from the art history books! It's amazing to get to see in real life, the images you have studied during different art courses! Like this one below, The Ambassadors by Holbein, 1533; with the intriguing scull that only emerges as you place yourself on the correct angle.

Or this, The Arnolfini Portrait by Jan van Eyck from 1434. One of the most studied paintings of all time.

The Rokeby Venus by Diego Velásquez, 1647-51. The inspiration for the painting Olympia, 1863, by Manet.

This self-portrait by Artemisia Gentileschi, Self Portrait as Saint Catherine of Alexandria, 1615-17.

Lovely spaces, but a bit confusing to walk around as there was many doors in each room. Sometimes I wasn't quite sure if I had covered it all, as there was no particular route to follow but indeed many galleries.

Cézanne and Van Gogh:

A lovely London afternoon!

London sightseeing

Linnea wanted to do some sightseeing on the day we went back into London. It's only about a 20 minute train ride, and you are in the city, so easily done on the days where her mate is in school all day.

Linnea hadn't really seen Big Ben in the daytime, so that's what we aimed for. We jumped off at Waterloo Station and made our way up to the Southbank.

We found a nice French-themed bistro for brunch, yum yum!

Then we continued to walk along the Themes, it was a bit grey, but rather warm

Time for photos!

Linnea got to see her sights, and we did a long walk around the neighbourhood.

We then continued with a quick visit to the National Gallery (more about that in its own post!) before we had some coffee and had to return back to Orpington for the school pick-up.
We took the more rural and scenic route for the walk from the train station back to her house. Spring in the air for sure!
 

Orpington

The next few days of my trip was spent with Linnea where she lives during her Au Pair-year, in Orpington, south-east of London. She is looking after a 4-year old little boy, R, who is very sweet.
I joined in taking him to school, which involves a 20 (-30 minute, depending on how much there is to look at along the way) walk. This particular day we had some rain, and the umbrella was a bit tricky to manage, ha ha!

The rain didn't last long, and we had some quite nice Spring days. Where she lives is very quiet, in the village but on the outskirts, close to the woods. The whole front garden was lined with daffodils, and even a fox came to visit.

I was very proud of how natural she was in looking after her little mate, she really is a hit with kids, she always has been, but she has taken to this more responsible role very well. It was really nice to see where she lives, get to see her room, what she does every day, to meet the family and so on.

Book Day was coming up, so a costume test had to be done!

Linnea and I had some relaxed days together, taking R to school and picking him up, playing outside with him in the nice weather; but we also explored Orpington while he was at school, and even went back into London one day when he was away longer. More about that in the next post.

Girls weekend in London - Sunday

Sunday morning we decided to go Danish for breakfast, as I had spotted the chain Lagkagehuset all over London, and there was one just around the corner from our hotel.

I was hoping to satisfy another Scandi craving of mine and get a tebirkes, but - not only were the people working there not Danish, they did not have any tebirkes... at all! Say what?!
So, a cinnamon bun it was, also yummy, but no tebirkes.

Linnea had booked a surprise for us out in Kensington, so off we went. Turned out it was a lunch booking at this very beautiful and aesthetic place, the EVE Kensington.

The food was very very good too!

A very nice mother-daughter date!

We then proceeded to Kings Road to do some shopping. I wanted to visit the Trinny London flagship store, I have been using her products ever since she launched. I only restocked my favourite BFF Cream though as it was very busy in there, and just one shop assistant, so no one to help with the other things I wanted to look at.

In the late afternoon we met up with Linnea's friend Sadie again, and the Longchamp-girlies took on the Waterstones shop in Picadilly Circus before it was time for Sadie to get back to her dorm, and us to go back to the hotel and grab our packing.

We picked up our luggage from the hotel and went for a quick sushi dinner close to Charing Cross before it was time to take the train to Linneas house.

Wrapping up a good weekend in London - but to be continued!

The British Museum

I had to get out of the hotel room Saturday afternoon while Linnea was doing her online assessment. Luckily our hotel was situated not very far from the British Museum!
I really enjoyed spotting this plaque in the neighbourhood, as I do talk about Sir Hans Sloane every now and then during my tours, when I talk about the creation of museums. He was the one who, upon his death in back in 1753, bequeathed his collection of over 71,000 objects to the nation. This became the founding collection of the British Museum.

The British Museum of course is HUGE, and I only had a few hours to myself. So I chose carefully which artworks to go and have a closer look at; and then I speed-walked through the rest of the space to see it "all", ha ha!

The architecture of the British Museum is (almost!) as beautiful as at the Louvre Abu Dhabi. That covered indoor court is really something else, indeed the largest covered indoor court in Europe. It is designed by Normal Foster & Partners, the same architect firm that has created the Sheikh Zayed National Museum in Abu Dhabi.

I have to admit, I spent quite a lot of my allocated time in the souvenir shop, always do when visiting museums. Here they had an incredibly huge and impressive selection of books and beautiful items... aaahh!

The British Museum was the first national public museum in the world. It was first housed in a 17th century mansion, but the building has expanded vastly over time. Now, there are over 70 galleries to visit!

The museum's holdings now comprise over eight million objects, oaw!

First things first, the Rosetta stone of course, maybe the most well-known and popular artefact in the museum. The importance of this stone to Egyptology is immense, as it holds the key to the decipherment of hieroglyphs.
The inscription, a decree passed by a council of priests, is inscribed on the stone three times. First in hieroglyphic, suitable for a priestly decree; then in Demotic, an Egyptian script used for non-religious texts; finally in Greek, the language of administration.

I also prioritised to scurry downstairs to the Africa Galleries, where I got met at the entrance by an artist I now know very well - El Anatsui. How cool! Here he opens the exhibition, and at the Louvre Abu Dhabi at the moment he closes our Kings & Queens of Africa exhibition.

Lots of artworks here that similar to the ones we present in our museum. Got inspired and fueled with more information to use during my tours of the Kings & Queens.

The British Museum has free entrance, and this was on a weekend, during school holidays... so it was crowded. We are not used to crowds like this in our museum, only on certain days of the year, as Museum Day, or Free Entrance Day..!
So much walking, so many people, so much to see, I quickly got completely overwhelmed.

Having visited Athens 5 years ago, and the Parthenon Museum, I was keen to see the Parthenon friezes.

The very famous Moai Hava statue:

Look at that happy face! Happy face in happy place!

I decided to get the smaller guide book and follow their quickest itinerary. I think they called it "Must see"- or "Highlight"-objects. I am hoping I will be back many more times, but for now, I wanted to get just an overview.

The Holy Thorn Reliquary, France, before 1397. This was made to house a relic of the Crown of Thorns, placed on the head of Jesus at his crucifixion:

The Rosetta Vase, Grayson Perry, 2011. This contemporary piece was made to show the museum as a place of pilgrimage where cultures and ideas meet.

The Lewis Chessmen, probably made in Norway, 1150-1200 but named after the place in Scotland where they were found. They provide a fascinating insight to the international connections of Scotland at this time, and also the growing popularity of the game of chess in medieval times.

I also spent quite a bit of time in the Middle East galleries:

The oldest known sculpture of a couple making love!

This small sculpture is about 11000 years old, probably from Palestine.

The Meroë head, head of Augustus, Sudan, about 27-25 BCE.

The Portland Vase, Italy, 5-25. One of the most famous cameo-glass vessels from Antiquity.

I have hundreds of more photos, but I think this is enough for this post. Even though my visit was short, I really enjoyed this space, and am hoping to come back again next time I'm in London to explore more!