Our last day in London. We met Noel for breakfast at half 9 at a coffee shop called Pret A Manger. They had a great selection of breakfast stuff plus lots of choices for lunch and dinner too. David had yogurt, banana, scone and tea; I had a raspberry and white chocolate muffin and coffee and Noel had some kind of breakfast pastry that looked savory and coffee. It was just a little something to start the day.
Noel took us to the Imperial War Museum which is FANTASTIC!!! The first exhibit we viewed was the "Secret War." It was about Britain's Special Forces and the development of MI5 and MI6 from the First World War to the present. It was interesting reading accounts of spy "couples" and female spies. Many British Women are very brave and contributed to intelligence gathering then and now.
We then visited an exhibit of people who received the Victoria Cross which is awarded to members of the British military for acts of bravery or performance "in the presence of the enemy." Only 1,357 have been awarded to date and, I'm sorry to say, none have been awarded to women (yet). As part of this exhibit were stories of recipients of the George Cross too -- I believe 4 women have been awarded the George Cross. It is awarded to civilians for acts of bravery. You could spend an entire day there just reading the accounts of why each person received a medal!
The exhibit I liked the best was The Holocaust Exhibit. It was an extensive exhibit with so much detail and many, many personal stories. It is still unbelievable that something like this happened in our history! There were exhibits of the "prison" clothes they wore and one of the things that brought me to tears was a pile of shoes left by people who were executed. Very moving. At the end of the exhibit was a wall of pictures of people who had participated in the atrocities inflicted on these people and what happened to them. Many, many of them just disappeared. But it did give the stories of the ones who were prosecuted and the outcomes. The exhibit was presented nicely and we could have spent even more time there. It made us all sad and we left shaking our heads!
We then took a little break -- we needed one after that exhibit -- and had something to drink and we rested for a few minutes. Amazingly, we had very little conversation then; I think we were all still thinking about the exhibit.
The last exhibit we toured was "A Family in Wartime." It, too, was really good. They had a mock up of a family's home and told the story of each family member and how the war affected each of them. There were displays of their clothes, furniture, etc. Really, really interesting.
On the way to the museum we passed the house where Captain Bligh lived and Noel told us he knew where he was buried too. He had just come across it on one of his walks on a previous trip. We planned to walk there after we left the museum. He is buried in a tomb in a family plot at St. Mary's which is now the Garden Museum. We did get to the location, however, it was 7 euro each to tour the garden and we didn't want to spend that much money just to view his tomb!
From there we went walking and saw Trafalgar Square. It is always crowded with people. We walked through the Charing Cross area and on to Covent Garden which I, stupidly, thought was a real garden. Nope! It's another district in London on the outskirts of the theatre district. It is a beautiful, popular area and seemed very upscale. We were very hungry by then and decided to find a good pub in which to have a late lunch. The ones closest to Covent Garden were outrageously expensive but just a block or so away we found one we all thought looked good. David thinks it was called The Traditional Pub but I don't remember. Maybe Noel will remember. Noel and I had chicken club sandwiches with chips and David had macaroni and cheese with salad.
No comments:
Post a Comment