Wenesday, September 20, 2017

London, England

So I had my second day out and, boy are my feet tired (again)!

I spent the entire day – 7 hours in the British Museum, mostly on my feet, and probablyonly saw ¼ of it. The place is huge and full of stuff – and people.

A bit about traveling around. I was advised to get an Oyster card and an app for the Underground (that's what they call their subway system here). The Oyster card is like a prepaid credit card that works in the main public transport systems here – Underground, trains and buses. For the Underground, you just put it against the turnstile on the way in and on the way out. You can top it up in any station at a ticket machine. It works great.

I got an app for the phone that lets me put a starting and ending point in and it gives me the routes to take and which stations to change at. It's all very convenient.

Now about the museum. It's huge! And crowded! Full of schoolkids and tour groups and just people.



I saw the Egyptian exhibits. The Rosetta Stone – the real thing. I had to wait 10 minutes, working my way closer to it to get this picture.



I saw the Greek and Roman exhibits. These are sculptures taken from the Mausoleum – one of the 7 wonders of the ancient world. They are about twice life size:



Sculptures taken from the Parthenon in Athens:



And some of the Assyrian exhibits. These are wall panels from a palace in Nineva showing the seige of Lachich. A battle mentioned in the Bible where the Assyrians led by Sennacherib captured Judah in 701 B.C.










Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Another trip! When I got home from Africa last September, I realized that the trip had taught me how to do what I had always wanted to do - travel to Europe. So, there were decisions to make. The first was where. After a couple of months thought, I decided on England. I like history and they've got lots of it. Hopefully there wouldn't be much of a language problem. Next was when. After reading forums and travel sites, I decided on September. That's after the big tourist season of July and August and before the weather turns really rainy in November. The itinerary was next. After searching around, I found a bare bones one on Rick Steve's website. He has been writing travel guides for Europe for 30 years or more. His website had several for England, ranging from 1 to 3 weeks. I chose the 3 week one and , after a minor change, settled on this: Sept 2 – Leave Denver Sept 3 - Arrive in London – train to Bath Sept 4 – Explore Bath –...
Read more
Image
Sunday, September 17, 2017 York, England My last day in York. Today I saw a castle, museum and a cathedral. First was a walk along the wall to Clifford's Tower. York is one city who's old midieval wall still exists: Today, you can walk along the top of it for about 3 miles. I stayed on the ground, though, and followed it to, what today is known as, Clifford's Tower: This is what remains of a 13 th century castle. It started at a Norman motte and bailey fort, like Warwick Castle. It was a wooden fort on a mound with an enclosing palisade. The palisade is gone and the wooden fort was rebuilt of stone in the 1200's. Next, it was off to the Yorkshire Museum where they have an exhibit of viking artifacts. York was in the part of England that was conquered by vikings in the 900s. By 1000, it was the capital of viking England. It seems that anywhere you dig, you find viking stuff. One of the best was this helmet: ...
Read more