Hindsight

I don’t have quite as much London material, because we spent less time outside and more time being social, so I’ll just split the London trip into 2-4 posts. But first, here’s a nice drawing I forgot to put up in the Versailles post.

Did I mention we had absolutely fabulous weather the whole time in Paris? Well, it started to turn just a bit cold and rainy the day we left, so we knew we were probably in for bad weather in London. We took the train across, through lots of charming countryside and then the “Chunnel”. Here are some of the views.

The view in the Chunnel looks like this:

Some quick sketches of rooftops from the bus:

When we got to London, we made our way to our friends the Gormleys, Michael and Mary Clare, who were putting us up in their lovely house. Too social for a honeymoon, perhaps? Ah, but the fantastic dinners Mary Clare made every night, the wonderful conversations over good wine around their large dining table with various of their children and lodgers — those were well worth it! Here are Michael, Camilla, me, Gabriella, Mary Clare, and James (Alison is behind the camera).

We didn’t have a lot of sightseeing time that first day, but we did get to the Victoria & Albert museum, which really blew my socks off. The first thing you see when you enter is a powerful sculpture by one of my favorites, Giambologna (see my Italy drawings). After that there are titanic plaster casts of Trajan’s column, a first-rate collection of Japanese netsuke, a fabulous fashion collection, etc, etc.

They have some wonderful buddhist sculptures.

This is their totally crazy cafe:

And did I mention that most of the museums in London are free? Gotta love that!

Next: Sir John Soane’s Museum, English publishers, art supplies, gardens, and more.