Hot and touristy

Well, if it is Sunday, sunny and warm, it must be time to head out to what is most likely going to be one of the most tourist rich environments on the planet, Westminster.

As most will be able to guess, outcomes were mixed.

We hiked up to the nearest tube stop (previously featured South Kensington), minted a set of Oyster cards, and boarded the District line (although there is just a tiny chance it was the Circle line, both lines are using the same tracks at this point) and cruised down an easy four stops to Westminster.

It was a lot like when Wireless first took us to Paris.  On that occasion she led us out of the Concorde station, we turned left and there was la Tour Eiffel.  This time we walked up the steps of Westminster and there was Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament.

The sun angle wasn't the greatest.  I ended up walking around over to Parliament Square before I finally got one I liked of Big Ben.

It's OK, it was actually several years and a couple of trips before I got the photograph I like of the view of the tower from Concorde.  Life is not a photo opportunity and the memory of the first glimpse of Big Ben is clear and strong.

It was Sunday so we headed over to the big stone church, in this case Westminster Abbey.  We approached from the the Saint Margaret's side, the north.  This is the north porch, midway up the side of the big church.

Everything I know about interpreting the art on the outside of these old buildings I learned from a couple of tours I have taken with the Englishman Malcolm Miller at the Cathedral at Chartres in France.

The main, larger opening features God the Father, the 12 apostles with a centerpiece of Mary and Jesus.  That's about the best I can do but Malcolm did teach me to look and those figures and not just look at them but try to figure out the story they are telling.

Here's one I like the lighting on, a look down the north side of the church to the northwestern towers at the front of the church.
That makes that a backdoor look at the front door.

Sunday, the church wasn't open for tours but it was open for church.  We attended the 11:15 service  The FT and I have now attended worship services at Westminster Abbey and Notre Dame de Paris.

If you want to take pictures inside the church you probably have to pay for the tour.  The English were hovering about pretty determinedly discouraging any loitering.

The memory is still clear and strong.  Amazing church.

Here is the west end entrance.

What they have above the door on this side is a group of 10 martyrs of the 20th century.  Five in from the left is Martin Luther King.

We followed Whitehall Street towards Trafalgar Square.  We passed by some stuff that on another day I might have tried to photograph, like the Cenotaph, the Horse Guards and the thoroughly blocked off entrance to Downing Street.  I did get the obligatory shot of Lord Nelson.

Nelson saved England in 1805 by attacking and defeating the French fleet off Spain, at Trafalgar.  Nelson himself was killed in the battle but with the French fleet destroyed Napoleon was unable to get across the Channel to invade England.

Nelson died proclaiming, "Thank God, I have done my duty".

Here's the London Eye, a really big ferris wheel.

The golden eagle is a memorial to the air force and naval air flyers who perished defending England in the two big wars.

This is Boadicea, Queen of the Iceni, a Celtic tribe living in the London area when the Romans arrived.  The Romans mostly subdued and civilized the natives but after Romans raped her two daughers, Boadicea rallied her people.  They painted themselves blue and went to war, eventually liberating London and massacring its 60,000 Roman citizens.

The Romans reorganized and Boadicea and her family took poison to avoid surrendering.

I know people are interested in this sort of thing.  This is where we are staying, the Nell Gwynn House Apartments.

Nell Gwynn was a long time mistress of King Charles II. eventually having two sons with him.  She was known as "pretty, witty, Nell" but she was a mistress, not a queen, her two sons with the King received titles but did not become kings.

And then this:  We would be lost without this place, almost directly across the street.

Actually directly across the street is Starbucks, of course.

Way too hot, way too many tourists.