Wandering About. Again!

So this summer on Crete, Lydia and I shared housing with a buncha other people, and lo and behold she's here in the UK studying at Reading for the semester. She came up to visit London for the day and we hung out, starting with a visit to the Victoria and Albert Museum, which has this impressively giant and swirly glass sculpture hanging over the reception area.

And lots of lovely statuary.

This was all enameling, which was beautiful in itself, but look at those vivid colors!

Awesome old choir books. The colors were so bright, too! And it was neat to see the old musical notations.

There were many beautifully carved ivories.

Intricate stained glass.

And this cup! It's called the Luck of Edenhall and was made sometime around 1350, the leather case about a century later. The glass is a beautiful Syrian piece, but the fun part is that it was (possibly during the Conquests) brought back to a family home in Edenhall in Cumbria. According to the myth, it was left behind by a group of fairies scared off from a picnic and as they left, having forgotten the glass, they shouted back 'If this cup should break or fall / Farewell the luck of Edenhall.' The cup was protected by the family for centuries before coming to rest in the V&A Museum, where it is, of course, still protected.

This top to a staff (of a bishop, I think) was no bigger than my hand, but so exceptionally intricate. I can't imagine how someone managed to carve all that.

Among other things, there was this harpsichord, which was a bit like a piano but narrower and quite long. It was elaborate but beautiful. I didn't get a closer picture, but even the fronts of each individual key were carved with little designs.

This elaborate little sculpture was created for the sole purpose of holding a wee bit of salt in that bowl you can just barely see towards the rear of the ship.

More colorful enamel! I kind of want to learn how to make my own now.

It was interesting that this large gallery held bits and pieces of old buildings. This was a 14th century staircase that had been taken from a building being torn down and preserved in the museum.

And this the front of an elaborately outfitted house from sometime way early.

The V&A also has some amazingly impressive copies of famous works from around the world. Including a full-size replica of Trajan's Column.

The replicas were originally for study by scholars but have become valuable pieces in their own right, in part because some of the pieces they replicated have been damaged or destroyed since the copies were made.

After we got tired of museum wander and had a bite of lunch we headed over to Hyde Park, first to stop by the Albert Memorial. Which was quite impressive, to say the least.

Right across from the performance hall of the same name.

Statues representing each of the major areas of the British Empire sat at the corners. Asia...

Albert himself in the middle!

Europe.

America.

Africa.

And then it was a wander through the park to the palace on the other side.

It was a really nice day out, plenty of sunshine, happily.

And proper fall with colorful trees and leaves all over the ground and everything!

This path is called the Wiggles! And literally just squiggles back and forth like five times.

I was quite fond of this nifty little leafy vine tunnel. There were two of them!

And some proper formal gardens, too.

We sat on a bench and some lady was feeding this squirrel (ugh) and when she left he decided to try and sit in my lap, which I was having none of.

There's a nice round pond with lots of birds of all sorts. Swans and ducks and seagulls. All happily enjoying the people feeding them.

More green space! There were oodles of dogs out and about.

We came upon this statue at the perfect time of day.

Peter Pan!

It was quite funny, there was a bird on every single one of these little pylons across the water.

There was also a section of Italian Gardens, which had recently been reconstructed from one that had historically been on the site.

By the time we saw all that and got to the other side of the park, the sun had started to go down and it was getting chilly, so we stopped in for a bit of proper afternoon tea. Which was most delicious.

After parting ways I headed home for the evening, and the fog crept in for the night. It does make everything seem all glowy and mysterious when it's about.

And then it was home to have dinner with my flatmates. They had put together a hotpot experience which was delicious and oh so much food.

The end to a good weekend! The next day was back to classes, but luckily it was the last week before reading week! The next weekend it would be off for a sister visit.