England.
After we got back from Norway, Jenny and I spent a day in London. Since we were running out of money, we decided to only go to free attractions. While a few of London’s more famous tourist traps–the Eye, Buckingham Palace, and Madame Tussauds, to name a few–are fairly pricey, the city has an amazing collection of free things to do.
We started off the day at the Wellcome Collection, a museum displaying an “unusual mixture of medical artefacts and original artworks exploring ‘ideas about the connections between medicine, life and art.” We spent most of our time in the ‘History of Medicine’ section, which, despite its stolid sounding name, was actually very interesting and interactive. The main exhibit concerned four themes, including obesity, malaria, and ‘The Body,” exploring medical imaging.Two displays caught my eye, in particular. One had the entire human genome in book form, taking up an entire book case and approximately a hundred volumes of tiny 5 pt text. The other was a sculpture about obesity. Check out the pictures below.
After lunch, we went to the National Gallery, a huge museum on Trafalgar Square. Just like the Wellcome Collection, admission is free. The museum’s collection is staggering: it has multiple paintings by Van Gogh (including the famous Sunflowers), Cezanne, Monet (including two of the Water-Lily Pond series), Michelangelo, Rubens, and Van Eyck (including the photo-realistic Arnolfini Portrait). According to the museum, these paintings “belong to the public,” which is why admission is free. I definitely got my money’s worth.
On Trafalgar Square, just in front of the museum, there is currently a different sort of art going on. For 100 days, starting on July 7th, randomly selected people have been allowed on to the square’s Fourth Plinth, a large empty pedestal, for one hour. Participants are allowed to do whatever they want and are not allowed off until their one hour has expired. When we were eating lunch on the square, a young woman was downing a bottle of wine. After we left the museum, another woman wearing some angel wings had turned on a bubble machine. Apparently, participants have not been particularly creative with their hour in the limelight. I suppose it’s only a matter of time before somebody gets naked or starts throwing water balloons at the audience below.
We spent the last three days with Jenny’s aunt Sally near Portsmouth before we headed back to the US. It was a nice respite from traveling before jumping on yet another airplane. We visited HMS Victory, Nelson’s ship during the Battle of Trafalger, among other things.
Anyhoo–here are some pictures!
