London, April 24-28th, 2013 Arrival Day and Day Two

ceiling in courtauld museum

Monet's vase of flowers (1881)

Manet's " A Bar at the Folies-Bergere"

Van Gogh's peach blossoms

courtauld stairwell

venetian statue at entrance to one of courtauld's rooms, 1700's

courtauld's early renaissance and byzantine painting room

square at  Somerset House where courtauld is located

St Clement Danes church on the Strand

entrance to twinings store, a landmark

covent garden

on our walk to the british museum

gold leafed clock in the british museum from 1700's

mosaic and fresco from Roman Britain in British museum

ceramic piece from iran

gorgeous iranian 1st century A.D. gold mask in british museum, most likely used in burial

the shard appears everywhere

scott at entrance to borough market

huge plate of paella in borough market, where there were lots of stalls selling food for lunch or take away

lots of traditional British meat pies at borough mrkt

there were a fish stall or two

southwark cathedral next to borough market

another view of shard from the cathedral

walking along promenade, Bankside,  near the Tate Modern, with view of Thames and St. Paul's church

view of London Bridge as we walked across the Millennium Bridge

water view

remains of a bridge near the Blackfriars bridge

fabulous Blackfriars Pub built in 1875 on site of a Dominican Monastery which was there in 1276-1539

with its art nouveau mosaic signage (1905)

wonderful art nouveau door handle

bar area of pub with its great mural bas relief of the monks

wonderful stone vaulted ceiling in pub with stucco characters

stained glass window in pub

Leighton House Museum, well worth seeing with its outstanding "arab room".

busy, busy days on two very nice, warmish and sunshiny days.  shortly after arrival we headed by tube to the courtauld gallery to see their collection and the small, but excellent, Picasso exhibit. From there we met two of Christopher's friends for a drink at covent garden and then a late Indian dinner near our hotel. Thursday was action packed: morning exhibit of the "Ice Age" at the british museum where we saw many pieces of small sculptures made of bone, stone, antlers etc dating back to 23,000 year ago. The age of these pieces was astonishing. nice exhibit.  We also took in a few more rooms of the regular collection before we got hungry. Then a lunch time trip to Borough Market, followed by a walk along bankside, across the millennium bridge, stopping in the blackfriars pub for a drink, then on to the delightful Leighton House Museum. Hurried back to hotel to meet Fran and Bill and off to our great chinese dinner and fabulous play "The Audience" starring Helen Mirren. Well worth every pence spent on it. Made all 4 of us very happy. A great day and a half.