Uncategorized – Page 256 – Number One London

So, I was walking from the hotel down towards the Mall in order to get to St. James’s Street. Thinking like a resident, i.e. what are these people doing here and why are they blocking my route, I then glanced to the right as a troop of mounted guards approaching – the Changing of the Guard. Yes, stupid, every day at 11:30. Oh, bother, thought I, until I realized that this would make for great video for the blog, and so I took some. Eventually I did get to St. James’s Street and Piccadilly. First stop Fortnum & Mason – bought xmas cards for next year. Then Hatchards, where I bought some re-issued, previously out of date Georgette Heyer mysteries. Then to Richoux Tea Rooms for lunch. Walked Jermyn Street, took (another) photo of the window at Whites, peeked in at Duke’s Hotel and toddled my way back to the hotel to pick up Greg and head over to the Palace. What an experice, from arrival to departure. We were truly treated like royalty. Will blog about it in detail soon – suffice to say that upon passing security, you’re offered chairs to wait in until the tour officially starts. So, I’m sitting there taking it all in (French windows, window treatments, rug, etc etc.) When I look to the right, and what is the first thing I see? Chantry’s bust of the Duke of Wellington – not kidding. Although this wasn’t planned as an Artie tour, it has certainly turned into one (yippeeee!) You’ll have to wait for further details on our visit, but it was really a treat. Even Greg was impressed/interested. Our guide, Dawn, was quite entertaining.

We got out two hours later and went for dinner. And Bacardi and Coke. Greg is emphatic that he’s done enough walking for one trip. Oh, boy, he has no idea – Victoria, Brooke and I typically do as much walking in just a single day as weve done this trip. And I spared Greg the tube experience, so we’ve been cabbing it. Truly, the man has no idea. In any case, this frees me up tomorrow so I’ll be heading to Apsley House (again) then Oxford Street and maybe I’ll sneak in a massage. What the Hell. . . . more tomorrow.
Update: Apsley House website says it both open and closed tomorrow. The chart of opening times says open, the calender of openings says closed. Tune in tomorrow – will I or won’t I visit Apsley House?

Score!

So . . . I was walking by the shop at the Royal Mews, went in to browse . . . overheard one of the ladies who work there telling a man that they are doing an unprecedented opening of Buckingham Palace today and tomorrow only. Private tours of the palace with a guide, 20 people per tour, champagne included. Reader, I booked us in for 4 p.m. today – woooo hooooo! What a coup! What an experience! What a treat!

Check in later for all the Palace scoop . . . . . . off now to Piccadilly to stroll a bit until tour time.

London – Day 4

Up very early and off to Paddington Station to meet our London Walks guide for our tour of Oxford and the Cotswolds. We all met by the ticket office at Platform 1, boarded the train and arrived at Oxford about 90 minutes later. The entire journey was pretty much done in a white out – the ground outside of London is still covered in a blanket of white snow and the weather was incredibly foggy. You really couldn’t see much more than 20 feet from either side of the train. A coach was waiting for us and we traveled to the lovely little village of Minster Lovell – detailed post to follow. Suffice to say that the village is filled with thatched cottages, narrow lanes, stone bridges over babbling rivers, etc etc. Reader, it was to die for. Didn’t take me long to pick out which cottage I wanted. Then it was off to Burford, a much larger town, where we had lunch and browsed the shops. Final stop in Oxford, where we took a walking tour. Greg and I peeled off from the group near the end to take care of the essential Three P’s of Touring as set down by myself and Victoria. The Three Ps are – a pint, a pee and a peek at anything that’s caught your eye. In this case, it was the Grapes (pee and pint both dispatched) and Waterstone’s bookshop, where I bought books by my favorite English authors that aren’t available in the States or on B&N website – a post on this soon. We arrived back in London at 7 and went to Boisdale of Belgravia for dinner – potato and leek soup (hot and warming) and Angus beef burgers (yummy).

Fell into bed and watch the first episode of a new show called Rock and Chips – later post. So, today is a leisurely day with no time tables – going to walk down the Mall and snake my way into St. James’s Street. Will walk Piccadilly, look round Shepard’s Market, pop into Fortnums, Hatchard’s and the Burlington Arcade, toddle my way down to Charing Cross Road and perhaps see a matinee of “When We Are Married” playing at the Garrick, etc etc. Nothing more than a rambling day round London Town. . . Oh, joy!

The Great Belzoni

London has seldom seen a more remarkable foreigner than Giovanni Baptista Belzoni who, in a lifetime spanning just forty-five years, was barber, monk, acrobat, engineer, traveller and popular author. Belzoni’s Exhibition drew Londoners to the Egyptian Hall in 1821 to see the Theban tomb and mummy. Belzoni had been born in Padua in 1778, where his barber father educated his son to be a monk. However, wanderlust filled the young Belzoni’s breast and in 1803 he arrived in England in order seek his fortune.

Belzoni was a giant of a man, standing six foot and seven inches tall, and turned his hand to performing at Sadler’s Wells Theatre, where he took the stage name of The patagonian Samson and displayed feats of strength. He went on to give performances at Astley’s Royal Amphitheatre, Bartholomew Fair and in scores of towns throughout the British Isles. Saving up a nest egg, Belzoni married an Englishwoman and then turned his mind to engineering, specifically to the study of hydraulics. This led him to the scheme that he might go to Egypt and instruct the populace on a method of raising water.

In 1815 Belzoni went to Cairo to offer to Mohammed Ali Pasha, the founder of modern Egypt, a hydraulic machine he had invented, which worked extremely well. While in Egypt he met the British Consul General, Henry Salt, who engaged him to travel to Thebes to remove the colossal stone head of Rameses II (The Young Memnon) to be delivered to the British Museum. His success prompted Henry Salt to further Belzoni’s expeditions to the temple of Edfu, Philae and Elephantine, where he cleared the great temple of Rameses II at Abu Simbel, excavated at Karnak, and in 1817 discovered the tomb of the pharaoh Seti I, in the Valley of the Kings. Belzoni was the first person to penetrate into the second pyramid of Giza (1818) by using his engineering genius to locate the entrance to the inner chambers, and the first European to visit the oasis of Siwah, and identify the ruined city of Berenice on the Red Sea.

Belzoni used hundreds of Egyptian peasants in 1815, and recorded this feat of

archaeological engineering in this famous coloured drawing.

Upon his return to England, Belzoni was lionized by society and struck up a friendship with publisher John Murray, who published Belzoni’s Narratives of the Operation and recent Discoveries within the Pyramids, Temples, Tombs and excavations in Egypt and Nubia. Byron’s take on the book was this, “Belzoni is a grand traveller, and his English is very prettily broken.” No matter, the book saw three printings.

From Dr. Smiles book, The Memoirs of John Murray, we get the following account of George IV’s coronation and Belzoni’s part in it: “Like many other men of Herculean power, Belzoni ws not eager to exhibit his strength, but on one occasion he gave proof of it. Mr. Murray had asked him to accompany him to the coronation of George IV. They had tickets of admission to Westminster Hall, but on arriving there they found that the sudden advent of Queen Caroline, accompanied by a mob claiming admission to the Abbey, had alarmed the authorities, who had caused all the doors to be shut. That by which they should have entered was held close and guarded by several stalwart janitors. Belzoni thereupon advanced to the door, and in spite of the efforts of these guardians, including Tom Cribb and others of the pugilistic corps who had been engaged as constables, opened it with ease, and admitted himself and Mr. Murray.”

Unfortunately, Belzoni still retained his wanderlust and sense of adventure and embarked for Timbuctoo in 1823. In Benin, he was seized by dysentery and died. A statue to Belzoni was raised in his native Padua and the city of Belzoni, Mississippi was named in his honour. His widow eventually received a small pension from the British Government and, in 1829, published his drawings of the royal tombs at Thebes.

For further information,, read Stanley May’s The Great Belzoni: The Circus Strongman Who Discovered Egypt’s Ancient Treasures