Euro14 Day 26: Visiting the past in London

Temperature: Min 15°C; Max 24°C.
Weather: Sunny and lovely – with a couple quick showers.

Our plan today was to get to the British Museum in time for opening. That didn’t happen, but we parked nearby  and were there about an hour after opening. Yes, parked, which means we drove in central London. Because we’re not entirely sane.

British Museum forecourt

The courtyard has been added since I was last there, and I LOVE it.

LOVE the new courtyard

We split up from MorMor and MorFar to go through the museum, but we bumped into each other every once in a while.

MorMor photographing Eskil

Isn’t this stunning? It’s so perfect that it looks like it was made yesterday.

So perfect that it looks like it was done yesterday

We took a little break to go to the front forecourt. Isn’t my husband handsome when he’s buying me coffee?

Coffee!

A quick but heavy shower came and forced everyone to shelter in the portico.

Sheltering from a storm

Did I mention how much I loved the new courtyard?

Another glimpse of courtyard

You can even see seagulls standing on top.

Seagull

Here’s MorMor and MorFar escaping and ready to be picked up.

MorFar and MorMor in front of the British Museum

Our next destination was the Tate Britain. I was going to attempt to head a bit north then around to the west, but my GPSr hated London. The data was SO dense that it was really, really hard to navigate. So, insane people that we were, we headed for the direct route. Here’s Scott driving THROUGH Trafalgar Square! Not recommended, but we survived it.

Scott successfully driving through Trafalgar Square. We are lunatics.

Because we’d been through so much on Charing Cross Road and Trafalgar Square, the authorities decided to clear Whitehall just for us! Well, either that or we were the first on the road as it was reopened after a closure for a 10k run was cleared.

Thanks for clearing Whitehall for us

With mum’s disabled parking badge, we had the best parking in the history of parking in front of the Tate Britain.

This is how close we parked to the Tate Britian

I quite liked the building. And the art. But the building!

Lines and curves

Repeat

Scott hanging out with Turner

A happy backseat.

A happy back seat

After WWII when my FarFar was working in London, my FarMor rented rooms at a house off Bayswater Road for herself, my Tante Sandra, and my father. Months before heading overseas, I sent a postcard to the address; we were invited for afternoon tea by the present owners of the house!

34 Bark Place

When we arrived on the front step, Eskil asked ‘is this our new bedroom?’ as he’s used to a new hotel every day or so. Oh dear. However he had a brilliant time playing (and being a bossy boots) with their son, cat, and dog.

Eskil dropping balls for Jessie dog!

We had a lovely visit, then headed back to our flat.

Canal

More photos can be viewed at https://www.flickr.com/photos/cragg-ohlsson/archives/date-taken/2014/07/13/.