Saturday we met Bill and Mary at the airport. After getting settled at the apartment we went
out to take one of the Hop-On Hop-Off bus tours. This was an easier way to do a little sightseeing
after an 8 hour flight. There were
crowds of people everywhere, more people than I’ve ever seen before in
London. We only did about half the
tour. We got off the bus at Victoria
rail station and took the tube back to the apartment so we could make the 18:00
Saturday Mass. The homily was a little
long tonight, I think the Mass was almost 40 minutes instead of the 37 like
last Saturday. Then it was off in a bus
to a restaurant called The Bountiful Cow.
Sue picked it out (Sue does all the work) because Bill usually likes to
get a steak. As we walked into the place
I spotted a picture of a painting at the door.
You could tell immediately that this was not just an advertising
photo. So I asked the staff if they knew
the name of the painting, and of course they didn’t know. But one young lady said she would ask the
owner. We had a nice dinner. I had grilled duck breast over potatoes, Bill
and Sue had steak sandwiches and Mary had a chicken club sandwich. After dinner we went to a dessert place Sue
and I had spotted earlier. It was a
place where all the deserts are works of art, and in this case they were all
very good. Just aftervI went to bed
after 23:00, I got a text from the restaurant telling me that the painting was
by Fragonard. The young apologized for
the time but it took that long to contact the owner to find out about the
painting.
Sunday we were off early, early for Sue and Ray that is, to
make our 10:00 entry time for a Buckingham Palace tour. We dragged Bill and Mary along because there
were three paintings on display in the Palace State Rooms that we wanted to
see. These paintings are not on the 1001
list, but on a couple of different lists that we have going. One painting is “The Music Lesson” by Vermeer. We have seen 32 of the 35 known Vermeer paintings. Although just before we left on this trip I
read an article that said two very small paintings had been authenticated as
being by Vermeer, so will have to learn more about that. Anyway we need to see the Music Lesson. And there are two paintings that are on Sue’s
scarf that she bought in Amsterdam in 2012 that has 80 Old Master portraits on
the scarf. We have either seen, or at
least been to the galleries (before we started looking for these paintings) where
71 of these paintings are located. The
two paintings are “A Self Portrait” by Sir Peter Paul Rubens and "Portrait
of Jacopo Sannazaro" by Titian.
While on the tour we saw two paintings by Caravaggio. I don’t have a complete list of Caravaggio’s
but I like to keep track of the ones we have seen.
After the palace tour we went to Wimbledon. It is a bit outside of Central London. Bill was State Tennis Champ of Wisconsin
in1974 and still plays, so he put that of his list of things to do. We didn’t do the tour, but walked around the
grounds and of course went to the gift shop.
Our lovely daughter is a tennis coach at Mundelein High School (she never
played a set in her life), so we picked up a little memento for her. Before we headed back to Central London we
had Fish and Chips at a greasy spoon.
The tables were so sticky we thought we would have to be hosed off
before leaving. It was all good though. Made
on the spot so hot and crispy.
Tube back to Victoria Station and got back on the hop on bus
to finish the tour from yesterday. Sat
at stops more then moving, but it was fine.
Went by Hyde Park which was bursting with people. Also tons of people at the Marble Arch taking
pictures of something or someone.
We got off at the stop nearest our apartment and walked to
Regents Park. This is one of the largest
parks in London, and is walking distance to our apartment. Not as many people here as in Hyde Park, but
it was busy. We rested a bit before going out to dinner.
We went to Ciao Bella, a restaurant we had been to before with
our Amsterdam friends Jim and Nanny. It
is very close to Jim’s old apartment.
Gosh darn him, he sold the place a year ago. The location was beautiful. This place is total Italian. All of the workers are Italian, they yell in
Italian at each other, there is a piano player, very old school. Large family groups all over the restaurant. We had traditional dishes of pasta, dry
salted cod with egg and onions, and lovely veal with olives, capers and
tomatoes.
Stopped for coffee along the way home, watched the closing
ceremonies of the Commonwealth Games and planned our trip for Monday.
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