I'd never been to the National Gallery before:
One of my gifts were tickets to a special exhibition of Paul Delaroche paintings. Himself also bought us the audio guides (well worth the two quid extra, as you get so much more from the exhibition) so off we set plugged into our machines. Wow what an exhibition. Many huge paintings that seeing photos in a book (or a blog!) can never convey the size, texture or richness of the real thing. Each time we go to a gallery or museum, I forget how much I enjoy looking at the real thing. This was one of my favourites in the Delaroche exhibition, The Excecution of Lady Jane Grey (246cm x297cm:
The Two Princes in The Tower (181cm x 215cm):
We spent hours looking at the 13th - 15th century paintings and then started getting Art fatigue (I know, aren't we phillistines?!) so decided to make a point of seeking out the more famous18th -20th Century ones on this, our first visit: Sunflowers by Van Gogh, The Suerats, Constables, Turners, Gainsboroughs, Stubbs, Hogarth etc. Some bigger and some smaller than I imagined, but all so much better in the flesh and we were able to get within a foot to see them too. Splendid. We are definately coming back here again.As the weather was so pleasant we also did quite a bit of walking around outside taking photos like a couple of tourists (oh, hang on, we *were* tourists!)
Night time trees in Leicester Square:
Iron Lampost:
Trafalger Square:
Me standing in front of some London buses in Trafalger Square:
Ginger hair (yes really!) coming out of a window in Beak Street (no, we didn't why know either):
Himself in Trafalger Square:
Carnaby Street:
A Duck (DUKW WW2 amphibious vehicle) tours bus complete with tourists quacking loudly on their duck whistles:
Egyptian design tiling all over this building:
The closest us mere mortals can get to 10 Downing Street nowadays:
A Coldstream guard, on his own just before another eager tourist stood next to him for a photo:
and no I wasn't one of the ones who wanted my photo stood next to a guard.Typical Whitehall view:
Me, standing on the edge of Trafalger Square with Big Ben in the background:
Waiting for Big Ben to chime:
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