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Here at Trafalgar
Square is a monument to Admiral Lord Nelson and at the back
of the square is the National Gallery. The gallery, free to the
public
has a fantastic -- not to mention huge -- colletion of art. At
the Northeast corner of the square is the world famous St. Martin
in the Fields. The shot
does not fairly display the huge square plaza itself, a location
for many cultural events, between the monument and the gallery.
About 10 minutes up Charing Cross Road, (to the right of
the Gallery) which becomes Tottenham Court Road at Oxford Circus
(circle)and just a quick
jaunt to the right you'll stumble on the world renouned British
Museum [Left], which is far, far larger than it looks from
the front entrance shown here. It has
90 galleries with just about every kind of museum artifact you
can imagine
therein.
The Rosetta
stone, found in 1799 in Rosette, Egypt, near the mouth of
the Nile, contains the same text in three languages that were
common in the
days of the Pharoahs: hieroglyphs, Demotic (everyday Egyptian
script) and Greek. Its discovery was the key to translating the
heiroglyphs, the
meanings of which had been unknown until that time. Seen to the
right another famous sculpture (c.460 BC) currently resides at
the top of the
staircase just inside the front door.
Above left is the Cyber cafe with Subway Sandwich Shop where I
did most my email stuff. Some 480 Computers there! And just up
the street and
around the corner a bit from the British Museum is the Eisenhower
Center, a used-to-be entrance to an underground WWII bomb shelter
which
would provide shelter and safety for some 14,000. On the left
and right of the picture are the Exhaust stacks and just around
the corner to the left
and next to the Goodge Street Tube station are two less decorated
exhausts which, I am told, arise from the other end of the shelter...
Above [left] is one of the many hundreds of old double decker
buses that you can still just hop on and pay as you go. These
have been in service
virtually nonstop, day after day, for 40 years. They are being
phased out because they have no wheelchair access and will all
be gone by 2016. The
newer models [right] are slightly larger, wheelchair accessible,
and require that you prepay at the bus stop. It costs 1£
to ride virtually from end to
end of most routes and are all numbered by route. Maps are available
everywhere as well as posted at the stops to help the traveller
determine which
number(s) will get them to their destination.
Below left is a shot taken at the evening crowd at Leicester
Square, the theater sector. Within a 1-minute walk, and in most
cases visible from where
this shot was taken are:
| Burger King | Garfunkels | Subway | Starbucks | MacDonalds | Ben and Jerry's | Planet hollywood | I Can't...It'sYogurt |
| Angus Steakhouse | 2 Mexican | 2 Haagen Däaz | 3 Pizza Hut | 3 Bella Italia | 4 Odeon Theaters | Empire Theater | and more |
Just behind me where I was standing to take the Burger King
Picture above
is a street that looks into China Town. I ate there a time or
two after
walking down the two main "streets" it is comprised
of. I counted over 50
restaurants but I have to admit I got sidetracked a time or two
so there are
really more than that. The picture to the left is at one of the
lead-ins to
China town.
This memorial wall in Wellington Park reminds me of our "Wall" in D.C. It's well crafted and the names of the Battlefields are chiseled in such a manner that they show up in whitish text. Very impressive.
