“In ancient times,
hundreds of years before the dawn of history,
lived an ancient race of people.
The Druids.

No one knows who they were
or what they were doing.
But their legacy remains.
Hewn into the living rock
of Stonehenge.” ~ N. Tufnel

As we described in our last post, the whole reason for this quick trip across the Channel was an exhibition at the British Museum centered on Stonehenge. It was, however, part of a particularly busy day for us; the kind of day we mostly try to avoid nowadays. It just really couldn’t be helped. We had checked into our hotel in the Whitechapel neighborhood of London, which isn’t necessarily the most centrally located, but with that city’s outstanding public transit system who cares? Speaking of transit, we were in town for the opening week of the Elizabeth Line, a project 20 years in the making which adds a half-dozen or so brand new tube stations and miles upon miles of new track. I won’t pretend to be educated enough about London infrastructure to tell you whether it accomplishes its goals or not, but the stations are clean and modern, and the trains are likewise as comfortable as they are ever likely to be. We took it whenever we could, snug as bugs in rugs. However, our first stop was not via the train. Our first stop was, in fact, about 200 feet from the door of our hotel. Whitechapel Gallery.

To be totally honest, I don’t know if we’d normally be hip enough to know about, much less go to, Whitechapel Gallery. Fortunately cooler people write reviews in newspapers about these things and, to date, they remain willing to sell their papers to the non-cool. The specific reviews that caught our eye were for an exhibition called A Century of the Artist’s Studio: 1920-2020, and it was indeed a treat. Not only were there art pieces depicting the studio spaces of artists (for example photos of Pablo Picasso and Helen Frankenthaler in their studios), there were actual full-size recreations of several artists’ studios, including a corner of one room mimicking Andy Warhol’s Factory and the actual cage that Nikhil Chopra spent 60 hours in at the Havana Biennele. It was absolutely something different from what we normally would have sought out, and all the more illuminating because of it. John was vaguely reminded of an exhibition we saw at Tate in 2007 called “State Britain.” A law had been passed that required protesters to be X feet away from government buildings, where “X” was some absurdly large number. As a result, part of the circle formed by that distance actually passed through the Tate museum. Museums being what they are, they turned that information into an exhibition where the actual protest barricades drew the borderline exactly through the galleries of the museum. Anyway, it was an incredibly immersive experience. And all that before lunch!

From Whitechapel Gallery it is … enh, a 15 second walk to the nearest tube station. Two trains with a transfer later, we were popping up just a few minutes’ walk from the British Museum*. First, though, was a lovely lunch at The Shell. Random seafood isn’t always our go-to, but we’d just had a week of Italian exclusively, so something simpler felt like a good idea. (Expect a review on our Facebook page shortly.) Then we scooted to the Museum for our timed tickets into the world of Stonehenge.

It was a fascinating display, although if we’d thought about it much ahead of time we’d have been able to predict the nature of it. After all, the certainly weren’t going to haul the stones themselves to London. (Where would they find that many willing Welshmen for starters?**) Instead, the exhibit was focusing on shifts in human culture before, during, and after the age of Stonehenge’s “useful” period. Strange to think, but it was only a few hundred years after its erection that the focus of early religions shifted from skyward devotion to mysteries of death and the soul, at which point giant stone calendars, while useful, didn’t hold preeminence. Yes, Stonehenge became obsolete pretty darn soon after it’s completion. In any event, there were fascinating artifacts on display characterizing the culture within which Stonehenge would have been conceived and executed. There were also depictions of other henges, including an actual “woodhenge” made up of a circle of tree trunks that had been hidden completely underwater until a couple decades ago. A rare positive from global warming.

As busy as this all sounds, we weren’t done yet!

We had a date for tea in the Great Court restaurant, which is the mildly-fancier offering of museum food as opposed to the adequate-but-not-recommendable cafeteria fare otherwise available. Great Court offers high tea in the afternoon, made up of little sandwiches, scones, and sweet snackage. We’d hoped (and were happy to discover) that it made for a pleasant respite in the late afternoon.

Especially since there was an entire extra exhibition at the British Museum that we hadn’t even known about when we booked the trip(!). (See earlier posted thoughts on cultural events going on that are both under-publicized and truly fascinating.) In this case the exhibition was “Feminine power: the divine to the demonic.” This time the focus was on depictions of feminine spiritual beings across the planet and throughout history. One of the benefits of doing an exhibition with a “hot” contemporary focus is that loans from other museums seem easier to come by; we only know this from inference, but the exquisite collection of pieces from literally around the world seemed to support the theory. The exhibition did not have an activist viewpoint – that is, it wasn’t arguing for change. Rather, it was trying to scrape the crust off of these feminine figures that already exist and already are powerful but are rarely given full attention in the current dominant cultures. They weren’t being held up, they are up and merely wait for us to turn our heads in their directions. It was an incredible show.

Wrung out from this last art sprint, we lumbered back to the tube and into our hotel, where we made use of the on-site restaurant to put together a pretty simple meat and cheese plate for dinner. From there it was a good night’s sleep before our (relatively) early rise. After all, we had a train to catch.

*- before anybody asks: yes, we know about the Elgin Marbles and the broader problem of plundered loot on exhibit there. We didn’t look at any of that stuff (no really, we breezed past the Rosetta Stone without turning our heads). The case for boycotting the place entirely is compelling. Our reasoning here boils down to the fact that Stonehenge is, in fact, in England, so the particular exhibition is what they actually should be doing in the first place.

**- this may be the dumbest joke John has ever written, which is saying a lot.

The short answer is that we’re fortunate beyond words for how well it has turned out. This isn’t actually obvious at first glance. The apartment we’ve moved in to, which we were smitten with at first glance, has turned out to have a couple of almost-literally fatal flaws, to the point where we are moving out early to get to a new place. That story will probably come in more detail later, but the fact that we are packing up everything we own, again, slightly less than 4 months after we did it the last time, is certainly not optimal. Our first trip out of the country was not a resounding success. I mean let’s not kid ourselves, we saw and did some really amazing things, but we were overwhelmed at times in Barcelona and the chaos in the middle of our trip to France left us off-balance even as we tried to salvage the experience (which we did by and large). Certain goals that we set for ourselves and our health are more work-in-progress than mission-accomplished; as anybody’s therapist will tell them, the one thing you are certain to take with you wherever you go is yourself. I remember as a kid I heard “wherever you go, there you are” and thought “well that’s dumb.” Hang on, younger me, it’ll make sense one day. How exactly is it so amazing then?

Shockingly, we’ll explain by telling you a long story. Way back when we were in the planning stages of uprooting our lives and moving to a foreign country, we’d talk about why exactly we wanted to do it. For my (John’s) part, there was this hypothetical story I’d keep going back to. “Whenever we’re in a big city like New York or London or … wherever, you read the paper or Time Out Istanbul or or or … and read about all sorts of amazing cultural events that don’t even make the news. Like, when Lisa surprised me with a trip to New York to see Hamilton while the original cast was still there (<—brag), we dug around in the papers and found a little play that you never heard of outside of the city, called “The Woodsman”, and by golly if it wasn’t one of our most favorite theatrical experiences ever. These things are happening, all the time. We’re always seeing reviews of gallery exhibitions or plays or concerts that are taking place in far-flung corners of the world, and they might as well be in Narnia. How amazing would it be if we could actually go to these things?” Side note: whenever we travel to an English-speaking destination we make a point of rooting around for local theater options; we’ve had fantastic experiences in places like Dublin and London. More stories for another time. Anyway.

A couple weeks ago my news feed brought up a review of an exhibition going on at the British Museum in London, The World of Stonehenge. It sounds absolutely fascinating. Interesting. I mention it to Lisa and we both think it sounds neat. Then, a couple days later, another review pops up: A Century of the Artist’s Studio. It looks really fascinating, if maybe a little brief. The mental tea kettle starts to rattle. Then the dominoes start to teeter: in Oxford at this same time is Pissarro: Father of Impressionism. Now the kettle is whistling. We do some quick checks of the calendar, fiddle with a half-dozen websites and, just like that, we’ve got three days at the end of May where we fly to London, see a couple of amazing exhibitions, hop on the train for a day trip to Oxford to see the Pissarro and just sight-see one of the great universities of the world, then back to London to chomp on a Raphael exhibition at the National Gallery that we didn’t even know was there when we planned the trip. Do you see what I mean? Even now that we’re paying closer attention, a pretty fantastic event was going on that is aligned perfectly with our interests and we’d never have heard about it, but here we are seeing it.

Another story. Lisa likes the beach. Waaaaay more than I do, although I’m coming around. Back in the States we would occasionally try to work out a trip every couple of years to somewhere with decent beaches so we could sun ourselves and splash around a bit. This year, she says she’d like some beach time for her birthday. No problem. Plan A is to head to the Greek islands to hit the Mediterranean, but the truth is we were just there a couple years ago and that trip left a mark (another story for another time) so maybe give that a rest. So instead, right now we’re in the middle of planning a few weeks in the south of France and the Loire valley. We’ll splash around in Nice for awhile, then head up into the center of the country and take a gander at a dozen gorgeously-restored castles and their magnificent gardens.

Oh, and in October we’re taking the Orient Express to Venice to spend a week, and we’re trying to sort out which cities’ Christmas markets we want to visit this year. And when we aren’t hitting the road, we live in a charming European city complete with cobblestone streets and an easy pace to life. Whatever travails we’re going through, bumps in the road or whatever you’d like to call it, the truth of the matter is that we are living exactly the life we’d hoped to be living; we know it, and we’re so so grateful for it.

(May 3, 2015)

We all slept in, except J., so the day got off to a slow start. The men got breakfast from the Wedding Patisserie which made things a touch faster, then we looked at the day . . . made changes. . . and were off!

The British Museum on the Sunday of a Bank holiday weekend is not the smartest plan ever, but it is what time allowed for, so that’s what we did. I’ve said it before, and will again: this is *the* repository of all of the loot. So go. Perhaps it will be the Rosetta Stone that appeals, or the walls from ancient Assyria’s Nimrod, or maybe Greece’s Parthenon sculptures . . .

Don’t forget the Samurai collection, or the Buddha. There are special exhibits on display throughout, so just wandering will bring you fascinating pieces, like the dios de muertes inspired paper Mache sculptures hanging from the ceiling outside where the Eater Island head rests in splendor. Or the ‘14,000 pills’ exhibit of a man and Woman’s use of pills through their lifetime, approximately 14,000 as you might guess. Very weird for me, since I identified a little too strongly with the woman, who was basically healthy until breast cancer . . .

Speaking of special exhibits, they had one I was very excited about: Clocks. Very early examples, intricate ones, musical ones, and ones that announced the start of the feast. Wonderful fun for poking around.

Lunch was a random choice of a pub that had a nice menu — the Marquis of Cornwallis. This is a lovely pub in ‘Bloomsbury’ with an excellent craft beer and cider list. Although we disappointed our waitress by ordering fish & chips and a burger instead of the Sunday roast, we had marvelous service and a really good time.

Too good a time! We missed the Magna Carat exhibit at the British Library, which was still awesome for its offerings. (No pics allowed, so I can’t share anything with you.) After that we had a quick restorative at Starbucks, and then headed to our dinner. We thought we’d arrive early, but it took forever to find The Abbeville Bar & Kitchen, which was further from the tube station than we planned. The weather also turned and we were chilled and ready for some good food when we arrived. The kitchen did not disappoint in the least. Roast chicken in a carrot, fennel, bacon ‘sauce’ was accompanied by golden-gorgeous roasted potatoes, steamed green beans, and carrots. The bread was fabulous, the ‘appetizer’ of Marconi almonds perfect. Our only sadness was that we didn’t love the wine. Dessert was a butterscotch pudding accompanied by rhubarb, and an almond Seville orange cake (they called it a tart) with a scoop of rich chocolate ice cream. Beautiful.

Best of all, they ordered a taxi for us — 11 pounds. SO very worth it.