After the millenium dome visit, we trudged through the ultra-modern North Greenwhich subway station and were soon back in the city proper, trying to get to and into the new Tate Gallery on the South bank of the Thames. Unfortunately this latest addition to the ever expanding Tate won't open until May. On this Sunday, we did find visitors leaving the place -- but it turned out that they were in the members' group with advanced opening tickets. (One actually had an extra ticket which she offered us. She must have had some of that Texas-friendly blood flowing through that stiff upper lip.)
The new Tate is actually the old 1957-vintage Bankside power station -- a building silenced in 1981 but probably huge enough to hold the large canvases that modern artists often use.
Given the beautiful day, we decided to walk through the Southwark neighborhood once more, retracing steps of previous visits. In Shakespeare's day, this place held the dregs of society (including actors, fighting cocks, prostitute, and bear baiters). Today it is rapidly gentrifying and is lively with crowds. Here's a picture of two nearby bridges, obviously being prettied up to reflect the new tony neighbors expected to be drawn in by the Tate:
I believe that the further span is the "Millenium Bridge" -- a pedestrian footbridge made of stainless steel and teak with handrails that aerodynamically deflect the wind. But we didn’t get a chance to examine it closely. (We could be dead wrong so if you've been on the new bridge, please email me.)
Walking past the new Tate, our dear friend the newly rebuilt Globe Theatre stands in pretty much by design the size and shape as during the Bard's days and often with the same building materials when modern fire codes allow. (Like Shakespeare's Globe, it's also an outside theatre and so never seems to have a play running when we visit during the colder months.) We took a tour of the place while it was being built and look forward to spending a summer night in one of its many balconies.
Around the corner from the Globe are a few other non-sights like the spot where the Clink jail was (now some old later building selling souviniers, etc.) However, we did for the first time see another replica like the Globe, but this one can move: tourist trap we have missed before on Clink street (yes, that was where the jail was-- theatre's weren't often in the better areas in Shakespeare's day. A replica of The Golden Hind, Sir Francis Drake's ship was dry-docked. The guide books claimed that this full size replica has circumnavigated the world (like its namesake). The original ship sailed to a place later called California where Sir Francis names a city after himself (and his middle name was not Cupertino, either). Unfortunately the Hind was in too confined of an area to get a decent picture so this one will have to do:
Here's a picture of the Hind during its Pirate days:
If you win the war and bring back a lot of booty, you're no longer a pirate and may even become a Knight. Sir-ves you right!
Next we rounded the corner to see the Southwark Cathedral which is getting a lot of prettying up for the Y2K hoopla. This place was built around the time of the previous Millenium (1106) and is the oldest Gothic church in town. Unfortunately we arrived 5 minutes before closing; since the place wanted money to take pictures, we didn't take any. (After that, I won't even mention the Tuscany churches not allowing tripods! Will these tourist places start selling air next?)
After that we crossed (what else?) the new London Bridge; The old one was moved by chainsaw Robert McCulloch stone-by-stone (10,000+) to the Arizona desert where a river was cut under it and it sits today surrounded by a retirement community (hopefully they didn't build a large rocking chair for it). Maybe Jacob and Miles will move it back someday. And by the way, that's not the real Eiffel tower in Las Vegas, in case anyone asks. Americans are getting strange notions of what should go into deserts; mirages should be enough
The new London bridge was too ugly to take a picture so we fired up the telephoto to take a very bad photo of the 1894 ower Bridge near by.
Here's another view of St. Paul's dome. The Londoners should follow the lead of the people of Pisa and tear everything down around the cathedral to get the view Christopher Wren's building deserves:
Then nightfall began its descent and we crossed the Thames at Westminster to take these shots of the Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament.
That was pretty much the trip for the digital camera. Dick went to work Monday and Tuesday in the London Suburbs while Pietrina checked out more of the South Kensington Museums.
Monday night we were able to get Opera tickets as we wanted to see the newly reopened Opera House at Covent Gardens. The place was nice but no match for our neighborhood Opera Ganier here in Paris which, by the way, is getting its own cosmetic job on the outside. Check it out this summer in person or on these pages.
Even though London had reopened the Covent Garden house two months earlier, the second act was delayed because the machines that turn the stage sets wasn't getting electric power. Maybe the engineers who did the Millenium dome computers were at work here. Maybe this land of Beowulf and Shakespeare would be better off unplugging anything dealing with entertainment and savoring the content it's created over the ages (he said as he uploaded the web page!)
Thanks for joining us in this wonderful town where most things work, especially if they don't need electricity. (Maybe they converted that power station to an art gallery too soon.)
Where do you want to go today? Here's a few choices:
last updated 21 June 2007
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