London Day 6

Since The Globe was apparently open again today we decided that was our main priority!

First we headed to the Tate Britain, as R wanted to visit the Pre-Raphaelites again, and there’s a handy ferry that goes Tate to Tate (the Tate Modern is the big ugly building right next to the Globe – handy!) The TB have reorganised since R was last there, and the Pre-Raphs weren’t handily located in one place, but mainly weren’t even hung! Waterhouse’s The Lady of Shalott, Rosetti’s Monna Vanna, Millais’ Ophelia (and Sargent’s Ellen Terry as Lady Macbeth which almost counts but not quite) were the only ones there!

We thought we’d not even get to see these ones, as when we were wandering through the early 20th Century gallery, we noticed the next room was blocked off as there was a film crew in there! Perfectly timed, though, as after a minute or two in discussion with the gallery attendant, we watched with big grins as the film crew dismantled their bits and pieces and let us in. I think we must have used up the bad museum/gallery mojo last week! (Touch wood!!!)

After drooling over the PreRaphs, we wandered through to the Romantics exhibition, which has a LOT of Turner, as well as one or two of his contemporaries here and there. This was really interesting, as I’d looked at Romanticism a bit at uni, but only as it related to literature, so the artistic interpretation was a new angle.

Then we walked down to the Thames to catch the ferry to Bankside, where the Tate Modern and The Globe sit. We started talking to a lady who was walking a baby in a pram and a big puppy (who looked like a Bernese Mountain Dog – biiiiig puppy!) who was very excited that I wanted to give him cuddles. So much so that he managed to get out of the nose strap part of his collar, which caused no end of consternation. Whoops. Ah well, he was still attached to the lead and all was well in the end.

The ferry was a very civilised way of getting from A to B, floating gently through the water, watching the sights slip smoothly past.

The Globe was pretty much everything I’d expected. There’s a great exhibition inside the Centre which gives lots of details about Shakespeare’s life and how life and theatre worked in Elizabethan times, and how the Globe theatre works to keep a lot of detail of their productions authentic, like the costume design and construction. I was amazed that it was nearly 50 years between the founder’s first idea and the theatre being opened, despite it being an amazing idea. Why wasn’t there some kind of monument to Shakespeare in London, as he is such a notable figure in London’s history?

In any case, we went out to the theatre itself for the “tour”, which was a lady telling us a few things about how the building was built and that we weren’t allowed onto the stage, while we eyeballed a group of kids on an “education” tour who were allowed on the stage! Ah well, we did climb into the audience and sat in the in-demand middle tier of seating for a bit.

All eyes were drawn downwards as we walked through the “piazza” outside the theatre, as one of the early fundraising schemes was to carve donors’ names into the pavers. We saw, among many others, Vivien Leigh, Charlton Heston, Laurence Olivier, and even the Patrick Stewart Appreciation Society!

After saying goodbye to our guide, we plundered the gift shop. They have a lot of very cool things there, such as magnets and badges with great quotes on them, play-themed tshirts and mugs etc. I was very tempted by the blood-soaked “Macbeth” mug. I think that would have gone down a treat at morning tea at work, but the problem is always getting breakables home safe! Mugs are such a difficult shape…

Mid-afternoon we stopped for a hearty pub lunch at a “traditional” pub nearby, getting back onto the potato wagon well and truly with a bucketload of chips. What could I have been thinking, not eating any potato yesterday?

The rest of the day was pretty uneventful, catching up on the laundry again and heading over the road to a rival hotel restaurant for dinner and making plans for tomorrow. How many of the last-minute sights can we catch? There’s only two days left!