flinn@seismo.UUCP (E. A. Flinn) (04/05/84)
Some suggestions for England: I don't know if there's a green Michelin guide for England, since I always take the Blue Guides, which also have no hotel information, but tell you absolutely everything, right down to the addresses where Jane Austen, Haydn, Mozart, etc., stayed while in London. If you want really inexpensive accomodations, you can do worse than the bed-and-breakfast places in Sussex Gardens, near Paddington; otherwise I would go with the recommendations of any reasonable guidebook. The underground from Heathrow to Picadilly Circus has been completed, whereas the airport busses run to Victoria terminal. If you arrive on an overnight flight and want to come into the city in the morning rush hour, the former is a lot faster. Tourist London is bounded by Harrod's on the southwest, Charing Cross Road and the theater district on the east, the river on the south, and Green Park on the West, with branches extending to Kew, Hampton Court, the Tower, and the British Museum. Picadilly Circus and Trafalgar Square are the center of everything. Beginning with the latter, St.-Martin's-in-the-Fields is on the east at the beginning of the Strand; the National Gallery is on the north, Nelson's Column in the middle, and Whitehall extending toward Westminster Abbey on the south. The National Gallery is worth a good many hours. It has the Velasquez nude called the 'Rokeby Venus,' a Leonardo cartoon of the Virgin and St. Anne, the Van Eyck marriage portrait of the Arnolfinis, the Wilton Diptych, a version of the Leonardo Virgin of the Rocks that's somewhat inferior to the Louvre version, many Turners and Constables, and a lot of other very good things; good reproductions and books in the shop. From Trafalgar Square it's a few blocks south to Westminster Bridge, with Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Parliament just beyond. You won't way to miss either of the latter, but the HofP is open to visitors only on Saturdays. Don't overlook the boat trip down the river from Westminster Bridge to the Tower - the dock is down some steps on the north side of the bridge. Don't miss the Tower, either. A couple of other places are a little out of the way. Sir Hans Soanes's house is on the north side of Lincoln's Inn Fields; he was an eighteenth-century collector who left his house to the people with the stipulation that nothing could be added or taken away; the house is crammed with art objects and all kinds of other stuff, including several Hogarth paintings cleverly hung on hinges, and the sarcophagus of the Goddess Nut in the basement. The Victoria & Albert Museum may be interesting, but you should look out for the section on Elizabethan miniatures; Hillary's little painting of a gentleman is here, west and downstairs from the Raphael room. The Tate and Wallace collections and the Courtauld Institute have mainly British paintings. To see British *academic* painting, visit Burlington House, north through Burlington Arcade from Picadilly, a block or so west of the Circus. Prices in the Arcade shops are outrageous. The great men's clubs are along Pall Mall west of Lower Regent Street; most of them have no identification outside, but the Athenaeum, which is the one with intellectual affiliation (although populated mainly by bishops), is at the corner of Lower Regent Street and Pall Mall, in a separate classical building with a newly gilded statue of Athena on the roof. Thackeray wrote his novels in the long library on the second floor. It's worth peering in the door, or ringing the bell to ask the porter for directions. The Duke of Wellington used to go in regularly to use the bathroom, even though he wasn't a member; when challenged by a brash young porter as to whether he was a member of the club, he replied, "you mean this place is a *club* as well?" Woolworth's in England sell everything, including groceries; a good place to get eating materials in the city (Oxford Street a few blocks west of the intersection with New Bond Street is the closest to the center). Also in Oxford Street is Marks & Spencer, where you can get very good quality clothing for comparatively little; the sweaters are good bargains. The British Museum is walkable from the Russell Square underground station, and is worth half a day in itself. In the shop you can buy good reproduction of those hilarious Saxon chessmen; it's worth bringing back the king and queen just for the expression on their faces. If you collect British coins you already know about Seaby's, near Oxford Circus; much better to rummage through trays than to order out of mail catalogs, although both Seaby's and Michael Trennery are reliable. For good things to buy, spend a few hours in Liberty's (in Regent Street) and Harrod's. The Liberty print silk scarves are now unfortunately very expensive indeed, but they have lots of other nice things. You should plan a day in Cambridge or Oxford; I would opt for Cambridge, which is an hour's train ride from London, and you don't need a car there. The colleges now have identification signs outside; the principal sights are King's College and its chapel, Queen's, Trinity, and Emmanuel (a little away from the center of the town, with a Wren chapel and historical ties to Harvard). Any clothing shop will cheerfully sell you Cambridge college scarves and ties whether you're entitled to them or not. The scarves are colorful, warm, and last forever, and are distinctive enough that when you get back you may be greeted by graduates of the college you're sporting. The pub on the main bridge across the Cam serves Merrydown Cider, which is excellent, but you should be careful, since it's really an apple wine with an alcohol content of about 20%. Unwary Americans are plied with the stuff by their Cantabrian friends, with speculation on when they will fall off the balustrade of the bridge into the river. If you're feeling athletic, take a punt out - they are for rent right across from the Mill. Harder to do than it looks - the pole is heavy and made of wood, so that you don't just drop it into the water: you have to heave it downward. The bottom is hard and pebbly downriver toward Jesus College - much easier than in the other direction toward Grantchester, and you pass behind King's, Trinity, St. John's, etc. However, a really nice half-day trip is to punt down to the pub at Grantchester (which has some association with Brooke's poem that has the line 'and is there honey still for tea?') and have tea there. In fact, afternoon tea, especially in the west of England, is one of the finest English institutions. Biscuits are cookies, and scones are sweet biscuits. You have much more freedom to explore the country if you rent a car. They are all stick-shift, and driving on the left is pretty easy, since the handedness of the car interior is also reversed. Northward the country is bigger than it looks, and it's a fairly long way to the Lake and Peak districts, across the rather uninteresting midlands (except that Warwick Castle and Worcester are worth a look; the glassmakers like Stuart and Tudor also have shops next to their factories where you can buy seconds for a quarter the regular price, many of which are indistinguishable from the ones they pass). A good and easy trip is to go back to Heathrow and rent a car, continuing west and south. Drive through the valley of the Meon River in Hampshire, which is the loveliest part of the English countryside. You pass through Winchester (Jane Austen is buried in the cathedral) and can continue on to Bath, the one city outside London that you ought to visit. The central part of the town is exquisite. Have tea in the little square in front of the Abbey, and explore the old print/book/antique shops nearby. The house where Herschel discovered Uranus is half a mile west of the center of the city, and the lady who lives there is used to people wanting to look at her back yard. Near Bath is the tiny hamlet of Castle Coombe, with an interesting street of country houses where a number of films have been made, but its main attraction is a manor house converted into a hotel. You can have afternoon tea on the lawn, and it's far enough west that you'll have Devonshire clotted cream (one of life's great pleasures). From Bath you can swing north to pass through Broadway, a village in Gloucester, and visit Stonehenge (best seen on cold, ominous, stormy days, which fortunately is not difficult to arrange) and Salisbury for the cathedral with the old clock inside and the bizarre west facade. If there is time, you should drive up the valley of the Wye (the river that forms the border between England and Wales), which has the most spectacular scenery close to London.
ntt@dciem.UUCP (Mark Brader) (04/06/84)
Seismo!flinn writes:
Tourist London is bounded by Harrods on the southwest...
Don't forget the cluster of museums around South Kensington!
The interested visitor will also enjoy Greenwich (in SE London, not far out)
where one may see the National Maritime Museum (I think that's the right
title) and the old Royal Observatory, whose location defines longitude 0.
Mark Brader