Italian Church In London

When I had my training in London last year I did a post in my food blog about interesting sights and food around the area of the training venue. One thing I forgot is to post here of another quirky find.

See this church? It's not just any old Catholic church. It's an Italian Catholic church which judging from the memorials outside has been here for quite sometime. I find it fascinating to see these out of the ordinary places hidden in the nook and crannies of London. At the time, they have just finished a service and was closing up so I did not see the inside. And yes the parishioners are all Italian speaking London locals which considering the number of nearby Italian delis and restaurants make this corner of Clerkenwell intriguingly Italian.

I didn't get a chance to see the inside since they were closing up.

There is some kind of a war memorial in the fenced-off porch in front. I hope next time I can get inside and have a look around.

Tower of London

I've been remiss in updating this blog. Mainly because of all the mayhem happening in my life offline. I thought being out of job would give me more time to do more leisurely things and be in a more relaxed pace. How wrong I was!

Anyway, early this week me and the kids had a chance to see the Tower of London ... well where else but in London. It was built by William the Conqueror in 1066 originally as a fortress and castle to defend the city. Subsequent sovereigns expanded and modified it. Hence, its use extended to become a palace, prison, execution place, a mint and an arsenal among others.

I've been here with my older kids about 6-7 years ago but they couldn't remember much from the event. We were prompted on this visit by our youngest who wanted to see castles and palaces in London for her classroom assignment of "defending London". It's their 2-week term break and I was not doing much that day so off we went on a trek to the Tower.

This is the view of the castle as you emerge from the Tower Hill tube station (click on the pictures for a bigger view).

This beautiful building facing the Tower of London is, I think, of the National Maritime.

Entrance gate to the Tower. Fees are now a whopping £15 per adult and £9.50 per child (5-16 yo). Good thing we had that 2for1 ticket promotion of the National Rail where we get a free ticket for every full paying adult as long as you present a train ticket on that day. It saved me a lot!

  

Of course there were loads of things to see and explore within the thick stone walls of the castle. Above you can see the Traitor's Gate where Elizabeth I (she was not yet queen) famously entered the fortress when she was accused of treason.

You can see above the central building in a castle called the 'keep'. Here in the Tower of London, this particular building is named the White Tower. Currently it houses a gallery of armories, cannons, swords, body armours, etc. The entrance via a wooden staircase can be seen outside the building. Access between floors once inside is via a series of winding stone staircases.

The first room you encounter upon entering is this small chapel.

Most of the display room were dark and lit by tiny recessed lights. I got a nice shot of one of the rooms. Don't you think it patently looks ghostly?

The kids were particularly impressed with the knights' metal armours - even the rude one of Henry VIII. There were lots of medieval armaments like swords, cannons, jousting sticks, etc.

    

Narrow passage ways abound as well as winding stone staircases typical of medieval castles.

More of the relatively contemporary armouries dislayed. The last one being a gaily painted cannon outside the White Tower itself.

I saw this gorgeous gold Lion of St.Mark standing near the exit by a Tower gift shop - you know the kind of shop that is strategically poised to squeeze the most money out of you.

   

As soon as we got out of the White Tower, we proceeded to the Jewel Tower just opposite it (see pix on left). The Jewel Tower is precisely that, it houses the Crown Jewels of the Queen. We were led along this winding queue lines which thankfully were not too crowded. Then we entered a large room with formidable looking very thick steel vault doors. Some other lesser important crowns and a gold robe were at the foyer of the room. As you turn left you will see a long glass encased display of the Crown Jewels flanked on either side by moving conveyor belts where people step on and pass by and ogle (maybe even drool) at the seriously big glittering rocks on the Queen's crown and in the scepter. We were all in awe. I've never seen such huge gems in my life. The picture by the way on the right is the Fussilier's Museum. We didn't get a chance to see it. The kids were complaining that they're already tired and hungry.

As we wound our day to a close in the castle, I couldn't resist admiring the beautiful setting of this venerable place. It was a perfect spring day, sunny, not too cold, the grass green, the daffodils out - really nice.

Just outside the castle is another famous London icon spanning the Thames river - the Tower Bridge.

A more proper view of the bridge from the promenade outside the castle walls. Now I know most people outside of the UK know this bridge as London bridge probably because of the children's song. Just to confirm this is called Tower Bridge and *not* London bridge. There is indeed a bridge called London bridge which is just within sight of Tower Bridge but it's not half as beautiful as the latter.

We walked on the north bank promenade of the Thames river where I took this picture. We continued all the way on foot to London bridge, crossed it and took a train home from the London bridge train station. I was knackered after all the walking and going up and down staircases. It would have been nothing had I not been wearing a suit and leather boots. Reason being, I had an interview earlier in the morning. Despite that we made sure to enjoy ourselves in this day out.

Smithfield Market

We had a chance one Saturday afternoon to visit Smithfield Market near the financial centre of London. I totally forgot that they are open only very early in the morning and close at around 9AM. So by the time we were there the market itself was closed and we just walked around the vicinity to see some interesting spots.

Smithfield Market, a meat and livestock market, has been in existence as far back as 14th century over a large open space just outside the walls of the old City of London. The current building where it is housed was completed in 1868. Good thing they managed to preserve this beautiful Victorian structure.

Besides the market, it also has a gruesome history being a place of public executions for people convicted of heresy, treason, murder, etc. Nearby we saw a big plaque for Scotsman William Wallace more popularly known as Braveheart. His marker was festooned with fresh flowers, candles, and Scottish flags.

Also in the vicinity is the old church of St. Bartholomew established as a monastery in the 12th century. The abbotts built a hospital as well of the same name which is now popularly known as St.Bart's hospital. Though the monastery was dissolved in Henry VIII's dissolution of all Catholic churches in the mid 16th century, it survives today as a quaint old church no doubt because it transformed itself into an Anglican church.

How I Get to Work

In 6 months' time I probably won't be coming to my current place of work because of the impending redundancy we're facing. For posterity's sake, I'm showing here how I get to work in the last 10 years that I've been in this company. It was a hard slog the first few months but I got used to it in the long run.

First off, I walk or take a short bus ride to the train station from home. Walking takes about 10-15 minutes while the bus ride is about 3-5 minutes if there's no traffic. At the train station, I take a train towards the direction of London for about three stops.



Then I take this relatively new tram system. This is a favourite of commuters around the area because of its accessibility (no need to go up and down stairs) and efficiency (almost always punctual). It's a short 2 stops for me before I get off and take a ...
double decker bus for the final leg of my journey. I always take a seat upstairs. So nice to sit high up and have an eagle's eye view of things happening on the ground. The bus goes to all high streets, main streets and winds thru cork screw roads for, oh about 6-7 miles before it drops me off almost in front of our building. So this is what I might go thru every day - 2 buses, 1 tram, and 1 train. Then I do it all over again on the way home. All in a day's work ... ;)

British Library, King's Cross, & St. Pancras

My eldest daughter, J2, is attending a dance lesson class in central London. So every Saturday we have to take her there at 1:30PM and come back for her by 5:30PM. I don't want to hang around there for 4 hours and I certainly don't want to go home and come back again for her. What to do? Well, explore London of course! We've gone to the 'big smoke' countless of times but there are still pockets that I haven't explored.

Last weekend me and J3 just walked around the vicinity of where J2 was dancing. The walk was not that far but I was feeling so fatigued on the way back due to the heavy backpack I'm carrying. Feels like a ton. It must have been with all the 'abubots' of J3 crammed in there. Anyway, just about a block away is the British Library. I seem to remember some controversy surrounding it during its inaguration. Can't quite recall what it was. That afternoon it was a sparsely populated place. We just got to view the main reception lobby and their small museum of showcase pieces in their collection. Unfortunately, cameras were not allowed.

Among the impressive items they have in the John Ritblat Gallery are the Magna Carta, Shakespeare's first collection of his plays circa 1623, Codex Sinaiticus - earliest New Testament manuscript in Greek, Gutenberg Bible, da Vinci's notebook (not code), handwritten lyrics and notes of the Beatles, among other things. They also have another gallery where they show how book making and publishing evolved. Very educational, indeed. We did not go in the inner sanctum of the library because you have to register and provide documents, etc. to be given access.

Avoiding lots of hassles so we kept putting one foot in front of the other which led us outside to St. Pancras train station that was only a few metres away. Currently it's closed for renovation. Of all the trains stations here this is my favourite - a classic Victorian Gothic Revival building. Beautiful and majestic. You might find its sight familiar due to it being used in Harry Potter 2 movie when Harry and Ron rode the flying car. And right beside St.Pancras is its ugly sister, the King's Cross train station. Low, squat, very functional, unelaborate mass of concrete, steel, and glass. Roads and subways (pedestrian underpasses) are being built and renovated so there are loads of scaffolding and contruction palaver about, which made it even uglier. Despite this, it's famous for its non-existent 9 3/4 platform - you know from the Harry Potter books. We were tempted to go in and see if they made anything special between platform 9 and 10.