We spent day 5 saying goodbye to London for a week- we will be back next Sunday. The day started with the best breakfast I have ever had. Now that is a bunch of hyperbole, but it truly was phenomenal. The Sandwich Street Kitchen, a blend of London and Turkish breakfast. Michelle had The Mediterranean breakfast which consisted of fried garlic beef sausage slices, halloumi, feta, olives, clotted cream and honey, Turkish bread, scrambled eggs, jam, roasted tomatoes.
Mine was the American Breakfast, which included a Cumberland sausage, bacon, pancakes, exotic fruits, clotted cream, maple syrup, two eggs, sunny side up. There is no photo of my breakfast as I ate it all. No evidence remained. It was as if it never happened, but it did.
We caught a double decker bus to the Tate Modern. When people talk of world class art, this is what they mean. From Picasso to Henry Moore to Jackson Pollack. Women artists? Barbara Kruger, Nancy Spero, the Guerrilla Girls. Too many to list.
Every room was another experience. The shock of walking into the Cy Twombly room with the giant violent scrawls of red. Three paintings that might not impress as much on a small scale, but when you see the real thing on the scale they were actually painted, it is more than impressive. It is immersive, and angry and freeing.
I tried to take photos of the Henry Moore, but the 2 dimensions of photography can’t do the art justice. Like found treasures at the British Museum, yet here we are in the last century, not ancient Egypt or Greece. You are witnessing some of the greatest art ever made. It was a humbling experience.
We walked out into our final day on this leg of our journey in London. Crowds were queued up from London Bridge to the Palace. Some brought flowers. Children, wheelchairs, the common people. Even though the line was hardly moving, the mood was not somber, but a celebration of the normal, of the years of service. This was not the outpouring of raw grief that enveloped the world when Princess Diana died. But it was impressive in the scope of the crowd, the many days we witnessed the same scenes of devotion to their Queen. She had been Queen for 70 years, and it was almost unthinkable that she had died, even though she was 96 at her death.
We were witnessing change and history, in a country whose history is my history, my roots, my ancestors walked these same streets hundreds of years ago.
At one point a woman emerged from an Italian pizzeria with boxers stacked high of fresh pizza for the crowd. It was a simple act of generosity, but silently spoke to the fact we were all there together.
I took this photo of Michelle, next to the Globe Theatre and a quote from the Bard himself:”I would not wish any companion in the world but you. “
We return to London in a week, but it’s on to Porto and Lisbon, and the land of Portugal.
Share this post