London, Day 4

We started the day at the National Gallery where we limited ourselves to the pleasures of the Impressionists and the Post Impressionists.  It is always a joy to see one's favourite pictures including a number of well known Van Goghs and Monet's The Gare St-Lazare.  The Monet is wonderful and when you see it you can hear the sounds of the steam engine and smell the peculiar smell associated with such locomotives.  It is a hot, sweaty picture, if that makes sense.

Monet, Gare St-Lazare

After our visit we went down to the refreshment area which is very good, bordering on elegant.  We, very nobly, settled on sandwiches and tea eschewing the temptation thrown in our path by the absolutely beautiful display of cakes and sweets. Then it was on to other things.  

Virginia walked across Trafalgar Square, down the first part of the Mall then through St. James Park to Buckingham Palace.  Lots of action there with people coming out of the Palace in Morning Suits.  it must have been an investiture ceremony of some sort.  She then went to the Palace Gift Shop in the Queen's gallery but found it impossible to move around since, although it is always crowded, this day was overcrowded as visitors snapped up the official Royal Wedding paraphernalia. She then walked back across the Buckingham Palace forecourt and through Green Park to the Ritz and strolled along Piccadilly, window shopping,  to Piccadilly Circus where she got the bus back to Paddington.

I spent a short time admiring Nelson's column and was reminded of the old song which begins:

I live in Trafalgar Square
With four Lions to guard me

Nelson's Column

Last night I had decided to take in the matinee of War Horse, a play which has had rave reviews.  After much wandering around, I finally got to the theatre where the matinee was scheduled only to be greeted by a sign telling me that the performance had been cancelled.  Feeling somewhat at loose ends, I strolled over to Covent Garden and enjoyed the buskers who were preforming there. 

Buskers at Covent Garden

St Paul's

A quick look at St Paul's, Covent Garden, in front of which George Bernard Shaw's Eliza Doolittle sold her flowers and a walk back to the National Portrait Gallery.  There I spent some time looking at the pictures of 19th Century notables.  All very interesting.  One of the most fascinating subjects of a portrait was Frederick Gustavus Burnaby. 

Frederick Gustavus Burnaby

It may be Burnaby's death in hand-to-hand combat at  Abu Klea to which Sir Henry Newbolt is referring in his poem Vitai Lampada.

The sand of the desert is sodden red, --
Red with the wreck of a square that broke; --
The Gatling's jammed and the colonel dead,
And the regiment blind with dust and smoke.
The river of death has brimmed his banks,
And England's far, and Honour a name,
But the voice of schoolboy rallies the ranks,
"Play up! play up! and play the game!"

 On the bus and back to Marble Arch.  Speaking of the buses, it is rare to see one of the older style double deckers.  They are all now sleek and shiny and fully enclosed.  Occasionally, however, one of the older models can be spotted and they seem to have been relegated to one particular route.  Here is one of the Number 9 line buses with the half front and the open back.

An old style Number 9 bus

Back at Marble Arch I spent a few minutes admiring both the arch itself and the six tonne bronze horse's head sculpture next to it before getting a bus back to the hotel. Historically, only members of the royal family and the King's Troop, Royal Horse Artillery, have been allowed to pass through the arch in ceremonial procession.

Marble Arch

Horse Head Sculpture