London & the Euro Star

After all the horrible things that happened in the tunnel between France and England over the last winter holidays, I had great reservations about taking the Euro Star to London. But a friend invited us to spend the long Easter weekend in London so we decided to go by Euro Star since one can go from the heart of Paris to the heart of London in 2.5 hours! We didn't have to bother getting to and from the airports, etc. I also had worried that going under the English Channel would last a long time but in fact it was only about 10 minutes, far less than the time it takes me in the subway to get to class, so I didn't really have time to think much about it. Pretty amazing actually!

Our first day, we had tickets to see a performance of Handel's full Messiah at the Royal Albert Hall, opened in 1871. Our seats were on the first row behind the chorus, which were absolutely fabulous. There was a full orchestra and at least 200 voices so the sound was incredible. We got to watch the conductor and were facing the audience so had a grand view of the hall. It lasted about 2.5 hours and,keeping with tradition, everyone stood for the Halleluiah chorus. Magnificent! On the way back to the house where we were staying we stopped in for about an hour to see some of the Albert and Victoria Museum. The day was cool and rainy....typical for London.

The second day we joined our friends to do some tourist things. First we went to the Portobello Road Market, which was a zoo and we tired of it quickly so ended up in a pub for lunch. Then we went to St. Paul's church, which was closed. We walked a lot in the area and saw the big wheel and some historic buildings.

On Easter, we headed out early to go to the Royal Academy of Arts to see the exhibit, The Real Van Gogh: The Artist and His Letters. It was really great seeing so many of his works from the period that he spent while living in Arles in southern France. I also enjoyed seeing his letters where he drew miniatures of many of his works. We ate in a small restaurant and then went to the Tate Britain to see an exhibit of Henry Moore's works. I'm really not a huge fan of abstract art but it was nice seeing this exhibit.

Afterwards, we decided to walk back to the place we were staying that took an hour and a half to walk. At the Albert Bridge we took the only photo of the entire trip. The late afternoon sun had just come out and was shining on the bridge. Back to Paris the following day.