Penelope Among The Britons, 1

Normally I would continue with the chronological/narrative flow, such as it is, but, hey, this is the grand-parents' blog, and Penelope is the star, whenever she is available.

First day in Britain, with Mama at Harry Potter World; Penelope, who is not a
Harry Potter fan yet, stayed with Grandpa in the camper 

Outside Alice's (Wonderland, not restaurant) in Oxford

Asleep in the camper; it's impressive how adaptable young children can be;
well, this young child anyway

In the rose garden at Blenheim Palace, collecting petals;
yes, that's a Happy Meal box

Riding the Blenheim train with Grandma and Grandpa; we never miss a train

With Mama at Avebury

Born camper at Longleat

Feeding the deer at Longleat

Three generations at the family castle, Nunney

Princess in her castle

With Mama

At Nunney

In the dress-up room at The Vyne

Building a mud mound at The Vyne

Wallace Collection "Other" Items

Among the best two or three private collections we have seen, maybe the best, so far...

Hertford House, on Manchester Square, a beautiful old town home; the Collection
is that of Richard Seymour-Conway, 4th Marquess of Hertford and his son,
Richard  Wallace; given to the nation by his family, opened in the early 1900s

Just about every room is replete both with paintings and with fine furniture,
porcelain, etc; actually, "fine" doesn't begin to capture it...

The ceramics are all over the museum, the largest collection of Sevres in the
world; and more Meissens than we saw in Dresden

Ditto

There are more than 500 pieces of furniture, mostly 18th century French (evidently
could be had for a song after 1789), many Boulles; here, the Levasseur Grand 
Bibliotheque, 1775; I must learn something about furniture some day (presently I
can only distinguish between Ethan
Allen and Ikea)

Despite everything else, here's the one most memorable
and revealing item at the Wallace:a 1793 poster advertising
the auction of furniture from the Petit Trianon..."meubles et
effets"

Made for Marie Antoinette, 1780

Ditto

Louis XV's perpetual whom-to-pray-to-which-day calendar

Ditto

And there were several large halls of arms
and armor; and more; stupendous place...

Wallace Collection Paintings

A couple of days before Rebecca and Penelope arrived--Bastille Day, I like to think--we visited the Wallace Collection, a London museum we'd not seen before. The usual line about the Wallace, which is true, is that if it were located in any place but a London, Paris, Rome, or maybe Madrid, it would be the main show in town. But, alas, it is in London, and so stands in the shadows of the National Gallery, the Tates, V&A, BM, and more. It still gets its share of visitors, however, and, from what I saw and heard (we did a tour before indulging ourselves on our own), far more than its share of the discerning ones. We were there for the paintings, but the Wallace exhibits far more than paintings...sculpture, ceramics, textiles, furniture, weaponry.... I'll do a second post on some of the "other" stuff.

Velasquez' Lady with a Fan

Murillo's Adoration

Titian's Perseus and Andromeda

Van Dyke's Man and Best Friend

Obligatory Rembrandt Self-Portrait

Rubens' Jesus Charging Peter: how much did he charge,
I wonder? The Papacy alone would have been worth
billions, gazillions...

There were many French 18th century works; here, Fragonard's
The Swing

Fragonard's The Scholar

And his The Schoolmistress

And a number of Watteaus...here, Gilles and Family

Watteau's The Music Party

Jan Steen's The Alchemist; one of many Steens

Franz Hals' Laughing Cavalier

A whole room of Canalettos

I never miss a Claude Lorrain...here, Mercury fooling around with Apollo...

Delacroix's Faust and Mephistopheles

And, finally, Poussin's Dance to the Music of Time

Brighton Interim Update

Daughter Rebecca and grand-daughter Penelope arrived on schedule July 17th at Heathrow. They had spent a few days with daughter Rachel and her husband Will in DC, so they already had a three hour jump on the jet-lag issue. Anyhow, we picked them up at Heathrow #1, rode the train back to Heathrow #4 where we had parked overnight, and then drove on to a Caravan Club site somewhere northwest of London, where we unpacked, moved them in, and crashed. The next seven days were pretty busy: "The Making of Harry Potter," Oxford, Blenheim Palace (including an encounter with the Duke of Marlborough), Avebury, the Vyne (home and garden), Nunney (family castle), the Jane Austen House, Highclere Castle (Downton Abbey), Monk's House (Virginia Woolf), and now Brighton. Rebecca has gone up to London for a few days' sightseeing and culture on her own, and we have Penelope to ourselves, which we have been looking forward to for months. Anyhow, we'll do a bit more of Brighton, the Royal Pavilion, etc., and then head up to London ourselves to show P the relevant sights. She is already quite fond of double-decker buses. I'll work on the blog as I can...being with the grand-daughter takes precedence over all!

PS As many readers know, Vicki contributes monthly to the World Wide Travelers newsletter, mostly on the more practical side of our travels; her July write-up is at https://sites.google.com/site/theroadgoeseveron/highlights-from-the-road/cotswolds-brighton-and-london-july-2013.

Not afraid of Virginia Woolf; Penelope at the
Writing Shed, Monk's House

London Scenes 2013

We got to London Wednesday afternoon and spent the remainder of the day setting up camp at the Crystal Palace Caravan Club site, reorganizing and repacking in preparation for our visitors next week, daughter Rebecca and grand-daughter Penelope. The weather turned quite warm, for London, in the upper 80s, but, fortunately, our campsite was well-shaded. We visited the National Gallery on two days, the Wallace Collection on another, the Victoria and Albert on another, and the Tate Britain on still another. We have seen some art and also some history. There were also walks around the Parliament and Thames areas, a play, a visit to BBC Broadcast House, Portobello Road, the ruins of the Crystal Palace, and more. I'll probably do a post on the Wallace Collection, since it was pretty special, but most of the others were old friends in one way or another about which I have blogged before. Our two visits to the National Gal got us up only to the year 1600!

My only photo from the National Gal this time--the missing Annunciation panel
from Duccio's Maesta in Siena--the guard was on me immediately: I had
forgotten the no fotos policy!

An unexpected view of Big Ben from the Embankment

Spamalot! "Not dead yet!"

Us on the Thames

Parliamentarian #1, in front of his Houses

The usual madness, in unusual July warmth

Thus

The Wallace Collection...deserves a post by itself

Outside the LaCoste store

Pots and pans sculpture at Selfridge's

Park anywhere you like if you have one of these

Oxford and Duke Streets

Minding the "Mind the Gap" poster

At the V&A; we had forgotten how overwhelming it is; limited ourselves
to the classical and medieval sections; glass; fashion, and a few others; and of
course the gift shoppe

The Nation's Painter, at Tate Britain (Turner's snow storm at sea); we'd  forgotten
how overwhelming the Tate can be, too)

The Doctor's TARDIS, at BBC Broadcast House (Doctor Who)

Standing in the middle of the ruins of the Crystal Palace; when it opened in 1851,
it was one of the wonders of the world, an all glass and steel building nearly
2,000 feet long; when it burned, in 1936, Winston Churchill was in the crowd
of 100,000 onlookers, and wrote that it was the "end of the age..."