My digs for this London stay were just a short block and a half from the Baker Street station.
No doubt about Baker Street's most well-known resident.
The biggest draw on Baker Street is the Sherlock Holmes Museum. It wasn't on my agenda but, it was a case of, "It's here, and so am I, might as well!
My first full day in London, I happened to be first in line for the second group in - the second group consisting of an Asian tour group. My camera evidently gave rise to the belief that I was a photographer. So, I made lots of Asian friends, taking pictures of them with the "bobby" (using their cell phones). The bobby even had props for them to use - hats, pipes, and magnifying glasses.
221 B Baker Street. Lots of detail in the museum, including Holmes' violin! The museum was fun for the first two floors, re-creating the sitting room and Holmes' study.
This couple was so cute - they were having the best time together. I wish her eyes had been open in the 'bobby' picture. Got a second chance for a pic when they were together in front of the fire - they were loving the tour.
I remember using these and chamber pots at some of my relatives' houses in Wales on my first visit in 1968.
Love these fireplaces. They remind me of those in my mother's aunts house in North Wales and the house that my grandfather was born in, in Llanelli.
Unfortunately, as the stairs got higher, the standards got lower - resorting to grisly (not really) re-creations of how some of the victims in Sherlock's cases met their ends.
Mrs. Hudson also has a restaurant next door to the museum!
The final room brought this museum tail (hint) to a hysterically funny end with, can you guess?
YES! That's right - it's THE HOUND. Yes, THIS is the infamous killer, THE Hound of the Baskervilles!! I couldn't stop laughing - the young lady attendant started giggling along with me and we just laughed and laughed. I had a smile on my face all morning!
Heading back toward the Baker Street station, I passed this storefront just a few doors from the Sherlock Museum.
The V & A
So much fun taking the tube around town in London.
The Victoria and Albert Museum
The V & A is one of my favorite stops in London. Museums (with exception of art museums) generally aren't my thing but this museum's full title is the Victoria and Albert Museum of Art and Design. Victoria & Albert is not your average shrine to the ancients; it's an eclectic space evidenced right from the entrance where this dazzling Chihuly sculpture hangs in the rotunda.
Although I'm a big fan of aimless wandering in a museum space such as this, I took a minute to get my bearings and consult my Rick Steves guide book for a walking tour of the V & A.
The great thing about the guidebook tour is that it points out the "don't miss" exhibits while also including some of the more "eccentric" sights.
The Easby Cross, dating from 800-820, made of sandstone and found at Easby Abbey, near Richmond.
One of the more elusive sights that the guidebook encouraged searching out was this notebook of Leonardo Da Vinci.
It's quite small.
It looks as if the manuscript is upside down - but it's not. The writing is "reversed" written from right to left "mirror writing."
This ornate box is the "casket" of Thomas Becket (Richard Burton played him in the movie). It's the size of a shoebox. A couple of Brits and I looked at it together. Snippets of our conversation: "I thought he was one of those 'larger than life' characters." "You know they never measure up to the size of their reputations." "More like Tom Thumb really." "Well, they're both Toms." "All the same...". "Quite...". Lots of laughs.
A whole section of the museum is devoted to fashion.
Fashion extended beyond the museum's display.
The guidebook recommended crossing the courtyard to the cafe for lunch or tea. A group of schoolchildren were playing in the courtyard, including a young man playing hide & seek.
The cafe is self-serve; once you've selected your dishes, the Gamble Room, which has the distinction of being the first museum café in the world, is one of two elegant choices to relax, chat and eat.
The Morris Room was designed in 1866-1868 and was known as the "green room" because of its organic patterns.
St. Paul's Cathedral
Like all great cities all over the world, London carries the old and the new side-by-side. Here, St. Paul's seen through a gap in the glass and steel of its neighbors.
There has been a cathedral on this site, the highest point in the City for over 1400 years.
The current edifice is the "new" cathedral, designed by Sir Christopher Wren and built between 1675 and 1710.
History easily mixes with the present in London; the primary children's activity in the cathedral is "Out of the Fire!" - a booklet in which various activities center around comparing the current cathedral with the cathedral as it existed before the fire in 1666.
I'm sure it's just my imagination but the figures on the balcony at St. Paul's seem to be crying out for London to "stop" - a gigantic ferris wheel as part of London's skyline, the Shard, ongoing ever-present construction - "stop - stop!"
A view of St. Paul's from the Thames
From
religion
to
politics on
Hyde Park Corner
Hyde Park
to
Regent Park
On one of my final days of the trip, instead of walking "down" Baker Street to the Hyde Park/Selfridge area, I walked "up" Baker Street and ran into beautiful Regent Park.
Coot family.
A beautiful park in the city - would like to visit it again someday.
Hyde Park Corner is more like a walkway or square where those with opposing views can, literally, square off against each other.