London - Day 1

Tuesday May 27

Another wet and cool day, so we consulted our "to do" list and headed off after breakfast for the West End to book some theatre tickets for tonight. The show we wanted to see was The Pajama Game, a Broadway musical comedy from the 1950s - just our style. We got some good tickets and then for something completely different we headed to the British Museum for some culture!

Noelle at the British Museum

On the map of the museum we bought, there were some items marked as "Don't miss" so we decided to have a look at them. Despite our good intentions to walk through the various rooms to reach these items we didn't get past the first display case without stopping! The first 2 rooms showed the history of clocks and watches and the craftsmanship and knowledge displayed over the centuries was incredible.

A mechanical ship clock from 1585 which moves along a table, plays music, fires the cannons and more!

After finally seeing the first "Don't miss" item, we ventured into a room on the 20th century and were blown away by some of the jewellery and other items in it. We loved many of the items displayed but sadly, our budget doesn't extend to items of this quality and rarity!

Compacts, cigarette boxes, and gold boxes by Cartier

After having looked around for a couple of hours we were getting "museum fatigue" and had built up an appetite so we adjourned for a quick lunch. Refreshed, we headed off for "Don't miss" #2 and did quite well reaching it but then the whole room beckoned so we had to look around.

"Don't miss" #2 - The Oxus Treasure

There was also a tour we wanted to do at 2:15 on "The World of Money" so we whizzed past #3 and then had to almost run through 6 rooms to see #4 to get to the tour in time. We just made it only to see a sign saying the tour had been cancelled so we just had to read all the explanations and look at the items by ourselves. It was another fascinating room.

A disappointed Al

The other room we wanted to see was the "Enlightenment" room, and boy were we enlightened! In the 18th and 19th centuries people were so hungry for knowledge and information and many wealthy collectors funded scientific trips and the publication of the findings from these trips were either displayed or donated to museums. We left the museum after 4 hours knowing that we had only scratched the surface of this amazing place - a must do if you haven't been there before.

We returned to our hotel to organise posting some items back home - Noelle now believes she has spare space and weight to buy more things to replace them! We enjoyed another pub meal on our way to the theatre and think the poms have raised their dining standards since we were last here. Arriving at the theatre we were pleased to be told our tickets had been upgraded and we ended up in the front row of the Dress Circle. The show was fabulous and another great night out.

 

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