Saturday, 8 June 2019

DAY 2 4 June 2019 London


We planned to see four art galleries today. The first one was the Wallace Collection. It was an amazing collection. Especially the extensive Sevres porcelain collection with the odd Canaletto thrown in. A lot of the material was bought as a consequence of the French Revolution with the Republican Government selling off the contents of the Trianon Palace to fund their activities. Some of the items had belonged to people like Marie Antoinette and Madame Pompadour. The items were of the highest quality and they allege that it has the best collection of Renaissance weapons in Britain, and it was very impressive.





Our next visit was to the London Guildhall Museum. Their art collection was small, nice but the more interesting was the remains of a Roman amphitheatre – not Pompeii by any stretch of the imagination but it was imaginatively presented. It was an opportunity to donate some loose change and get rid of those old 1 pound coins that we couldn’t get rid of.




We then made our way to Tate Modern, via the Guildhall Church where we listened to the beginning of a very good organ recital. The Tate Modern was worse than we could have ever imagined, any bits of junk strung together is regarded as art. Check out this installation which looks rather like surplus NHS (National Health System) stock.



By this stage it was a little wet and the umbrella was out. We made our way across a different Waterloo Bridge that Elizabeth remembered from the film. We walked along the embankment to see Cleopatra’s Needle and the Battle of Britain memorial and the tail end of a protest against Donald Trump who was in town. We finished at the Tate Britain and we saw so many Turner paintings it was rediculous. It was a very productive day, and apart from the rain, it was a very good day, finished off with an Italian meal.













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