London’s Art Museums, UK 2019

The Tower of London

The following day, Monday, was rather chaotic and fruitless. The protests demanding justice for the killed British teenager continued. Streets in the City were blocked by the demonstrators; all traffic was disrupted, the Big Buses did not follow their scheduled routes.

After two hours of going around the already familiar places on a Big Bus and wasting time in traffic jams, I did not get much closer to my destination, the British museum. I asked the driver to let me out of the bus between the stops and simply started walking to the museum. The road was so congested that for some time, I was going faster than the bus.

The British museum has a unique collection of artifacts from all over the world. It is not possible to see the Rosetta stone in Egypt where it was found, or in Greece to admire the Parthenon Marbles (also called Elgin Marbles). Cairo and Athens have only their copies on display. The originals are in the British Museum.

A private collector, Sir Hans Sloane, gathered over 70,000 objects of various nature over his lifetime. He sold his vast collection to the state and it became the basis of the British Museum. The museum was established in 1753. It was the first free public museum in the world. The museum aimed to collect all kinds of objects of scientific, historic or artistic interest.

The mighty British Empire certainly had all opportunities for that. Its explorers, naturalists and archaeologists were traveling to other countries and bringing back lots of stuff. Sometimes, the legality of such actions was questionable. For example, Greece still wants its Parthenon Marbles back.

Needless to say, I was eager to see all these rarities and curiosities in one of the largest museums. However, I found it difficult to browse the exhibits. There were so many people around. The Rosetta stone was surrounded by such a dense crowd that I could only see the top of its glass case. Groups of unruly school children with notebooks ran all over the rooms. Their teachers were unable to control them. My attempts to concentrate on viewing the artifacts failed.

It’s hard to explain why the famous British museum did not impress me. Perhaps, the road closures in the City and the difficulties of getting there put me into an irritable mood, or the fact that I went to quite a few countries myself and saw things like Easter Island statues in their natural environment. By the way, the indigenous people of Easter Island too asked the museum to return their unique Moai statue that was taken from them in 1868.

Cafes and souvenir shops were everywhere. I understand that free national museums need to bring at least some money but why to make it so obvious? Feeling like I was not getting much from my visit, I left the museum.

Tuesday was my fourth and last day in London. The weather was better; it was the first day without rain. This time I went to Victoria and Albert museum, the world largest museum of applied and decorative arts and design. It was far less crowded and much cozier than the British Museum, the kind of a museum where I could spend hours.

The epitaph on it says:

WHEN THE KNELL RUNG FOR THE DYING SOUNDETH FOR ME

AND MY CORSE COLDLY IS LYING NEARTH THE GREEN TREE

WHEN THE TURF STRANGERS ARE HEAPING COVERS MY BREAST

COME NOT TO GAZE ON ME WEEPING I AM AT REST

There were rooms and rooms filled with magnificent art objects, the originals as well as copies.

This museum also has a café and restaurant decorated with stained glass, paintings and ceramic tiles. Nothing in the British Museum tempted me to spend money there. Here, I gladly treated myself to a very British cup of tea and cake.

This was the end of my stay in London, an amazing city. I’d love to come again and see more of it. The stop in London concluded my 2-month Europe-Asia-Europe trip. The countries visited during the trip were Bulgaria, Japan, Philippines, South Korea, Norway, and the United Kingdom. If this list looks odd to someone I refer this person to my blog posts that explain such an unusual itinerary.

I was rather late with writing about my Sep-Oct 2019 trip in the blog. My work as a translator/interpreter keeps me busy while I am home leaving little time for blogging. I had to make an effort to finish the description of this trip in time for my next one which is about to begin. My husband and I are going to South America in spite of the globally spreading coronavirus, COVID-19. We hope very much that we won’t get sick or stuck abroad because of the travel restrictions.