Sunday, February 24, 2008

Three - Christmas and New Year in London 2007.

A traditional UK postcard you see is the Tower Bridge. If you have seen Tom Hank's portrayal of Robert Langdon in the movie The Da Vinci Code, you will see well almost completely the bridge when he and his leading lady partner were in the black cab passing it. Another famous landmark of UK aside from Big Ben and the bridge is the Tower of London. This castle, home to the royalties and prisoners centuries ago still stands in central London, a few steps away from the Tower Bridge. Pangga and I visited the historical place which was swarmed by tourists lining up in queues. Luckily my genius gorgeous gf purchased us London Pass cards. Yup, having this card put us in a fast track lane. The tower has a moat around it as seen below and during winters, they turn this into a skating rink for kids to enjoy.


As we stepped on the cobbled stones inside the castle, a stray fox greeted us, scared from the crowd of people going in and out from the main gate.

Fox snot :D

The castle has towers within its huge walls. The Bloody Tower (pangga's favorite) where they house the prisoners and a place of execution, White Tower where the royalties stay and the Green Tower where they torture the prisoners. Most of the prisoners executed were of royal blood, Anne Boleyn was one.

Royal pose from one of the actresses

The Tower Bridge view from the Tower of London

The attractions that I liked most was the armory. Being fond of knights, the armor they wear and weapons they wield have always fascinated me. The armory was full of the breastplates worn by each king. Also on the display were the armors worn by each champion horse of each king. I have also known that the lance used for jousting weighs 20 lbs. No wonder in movies knights have difficulty in carrying them and once it hits the other knight, it has a tremendous impact. The different types of weapon were on the wall from morning stars, scythe and swords. It is amazing how they invented these weapons. The wielder must also have the physical strength to use them.

Inside the armory

The other armory however was a restaurant. It is a typical restaurant and nothing special about it. Rather than fish and chips (British de facto meal), we had for ourselves burger and fries (American counterpart).

It was almost 6 in the evening when we were almost done except for the jewel house of the queen. We have decided to skip it since the queue to that attraction was half kilometer.


Saturday, February 16, 2008

Two - Christmas and New Year in London 2007.

Our first stop was the National Gallery in Trafalgar. I never thought I would see the art paintings of Leonardo da Vinci, Pablo Picasso and Vincent Van Gogh in my entire life. Pangga did surprise me taking me to a place full of masterpieces. Right then and there, we've seen the differences of their styles. Leanardo is not only good at paintings, his drawings exemplifies the brilliance of a genius. Some of his drawings were in the gallery displaying such awe and these drawings are at par against the other paintings in the gallery in fame. The sad thing though the famous 'Monalisa' painting is in Louvre, France. Our eagerness to view his work was turned to The 'Madonna of the Rocks', which portrays Mother Mary with angels around her in front of rocks. Picasso's style is cubism, a form of abstract. The gallery had a number of his colorful and abstract paintings. Van Gogh's style on the other hand is unique, well in my opinion. It's quite difficult to decipher his paintings of pure brush strokes of few colors. However, these paintings leave a 'mark' once you see beyond his painting the meaning it extends to the viewer. Unfortunately, no cameras are allowed in the premises of the gallery. The flash could destroy the paintings due to the sensitivity of the materials used. Below are some of our pictures outside the gallery.

The National Gallery entrance.


The towering Christmas tree behind pangga was a gift of Norway to the UK. I forgot the reason behind though of such generous act.

Trafalgar plaza in a very chilly night.

In front of the National Gallery.