London – Thursday 10th July

On Thursday morning we had another big day planned, with the British Museum in the morning and Madame Tussauds in the afternoon.  The museum was a nice walk from the apartment through Russell Square.

Highlights of the relatively short visit (~2 hours) were the Rosetta stone, the Egyptian mummy exhibit and the Parthenon marbles.

In the marble rooms we tried to explain to Grace and William about their ‘theft’ in the 1800’s by Lord Elgin, and ongoing tension relating to the Greek People wanting them to be returned to Athens, and the English believing they should remain in London to be well looked after.

In the Greek sculpture room, Andrew was keen to have a photo next to Dionysus, also called Bacchus, the god of the grape harvest, winemaking and wine.

Leaving the Museum was walked in light rain to Soho to have lunch at Maison Bertaux, London’s oldest patisserie, and a place where Gervase took Elle, Betty and a 15 month old Grace on our previous European holiday in 2005.

After lunch we dodged light showers, by walking under shop eaves, on route to Trafalgar Square.  The Square is a focal point in London, and so it was for us, as we visited or transited several times. The fantastic bronze lions beneath the Nelson statue and the new ‘blue chook’ were highlights for the kids.

As we were leaving Trafalgar Square we walked into Julia and Jacob, friends from Camberwell, who we knew were in or near London, but had made no plans to catch up with – petit monde!

Next stop was Madame Tussauds, an attraction we had never shown an interest in seeing.  However, with kids this time, we thought it might be interesting, and it was a great call.  Grace and William in particular loved it, and Elle and I were quite impressed too.  Many photos were taken, but the five above were selected to represent the visit.

The figures were very lifelike, and Andrew enjoyed lifting Xavier up to the eye-level of Dame Judy Dench (M in the James Bond exhibit) and watching him carefully touch her face to make sure she wasn’t real.  While we skipped the horror section, we did enjoy the short 4D super hero movie at the end.

Afterwards we went back to The Golden Hind for another serve of their fish and chips: you know it’s good when you go on consecutive nights.  Thereafter, Andrew took the boys home via a black cab for showers and bed, while Elle and Grace went out for a girls evening’ which included a visit to the Liberty store.