Today we went to Wellington’s Arch at Hyde Park which had a Wellington
display. The tube entrance has scenes of
the battle either inscribed or painted on the walls. It was quite good and
there was a large electronic table that displayed the battle. No photos possible but they did have Wellington’s
sword and his boots that he used at Waterloo on display as well as original
paintings but unfortunately no photography was allowed. It did provide a vantage point for watching
the trooping of the Guard, in this case hussars. We also could see the Royal
Artillery and Machine Gun Monument, the NZ War Memorials and the Australian War
Memorial which opened in 2003.
Apparently about 5000 people including the Queen were there for the
ANZAC Day Services.
Literally, across the road is Apsley House which was
Wellington’s residence. It was amazing,
you do one thing, like defeat Napoleon, and they shower you with gifts. One of the amazing things was that after the
Battle of Vitoria in Spain (1813) Wellington had recovered paintings that the
French had stolen from the Royal Spanish Collection but he was told he could
keep them. So he had an impressive array
of Reuben, Velazquez, Breughel, Van Dyck and Goya paintings. Unfortunately no photography allowed but what
was interesting was that there were several portraits and statues of Napoleon. The audio-guide was very good and his home
was like a treasure house. His decedents
still live in the house.
After this we travelled to Waterloo Station for a bite to
eat and catch a train to
Captions
Wellington Arch
Trooping of the Guard
The Australian War Memorial which records the names of all the places of enlistment that then spell out the names of battles or engagements.
The NZ War memorial.
Windsor to see Windsor Castle. It was 35 degrees today and it was hot but
the humidity wasn’t too bad. Again no
photography inside but we saw the doll house collection, the State Apartments
and the waterloo Banquet Room. It did
have a bit of wow factor and in the separate Waterloo display they had original
artwork, documents and paintings. They
had copies of Wellington’s orders at the battle on display, the original of
Napoleon Crossing the Alps, the famous Congress of Vienna sketch. They also had a red Berber style robe that
was found in his Napoleon’s abandoned carriage after the battle. I am not convinced he ever wore it. Unfortunately when we returned there was a
stoppage on the line. The ticket girl
told us that the other train company would honour the ticket which was good otherwise
we would have been waiting quite a while.
We took the train one stop, then had to swap trains
but we missed the first one as it was chock a block and we couldn’t fit
in. The next train was delayed as it was
very crowded and hot but we made it to Padington and then the tube to Earl’s
Court, have tea and walk the 8 minutes home.
Certainly there is so much to see in London and everything
is well signed including public transport and often on a lot of corners there
are maps to follow. The tube is really
quite efficient with trains every few minutes. You certainly feel safe walking
around but then again it doesn’t get dark until 10.00 PM. We had no chance to see everything here but we
ticked almost all the boxes, at least the important ones. The food in the UK has been a revelation, it
has been so good compared to Europe, excluding McDonald’s and Subway which is
of the same quality everywhere.
