London, Saturday, November 18, 2023
We started the day in conversation over breakfast with an interesting fellow American: Cal was born in Belgium to Columbian parents, and raised in Queens. He was in London for his nephew’s wedding; the nephew works in marketing at The Londoner, and Cal was staying for ten days at cut rate prices! He was an alert, curious guy, and it was a pleasure to talk with him.
in all our time in London, we had never visited the National Portrait Gallery…which is ridiculous because the entrance is 100 yards from our hotel.
The uppermost floor is an incredible lesson in English history, with portraits of monarchs and their prominent subjects; each portrait is accompanied by an exceedingly well done short introduction to a reign or contribution. And, mercifully, there are frequent dynastic charts so that you have some slight chance of following why someone attains the throne.
In this section is the very first portrait obtained by the new gallery when it opened in 1856 was the so-called Chandos portrait.
This may well be a portrait of William Shakespeare, but no one knows for sure!
There are also a series of remarkable portraits of Elizabeth I.
In the same gallery I found new information about my genealogy. I had long assumed that Jennings was a name of a humble family of Welsh miners; but this lovely portrait of Sarah Jennings, who became the Duchess of Marlborough, gives me–to say nothing of my daughter–a clear aristocratic heritage. I hope I will in the future be addressed accordingly.
At a certain point the endless stories of dissolute, debauched monarchs begins to wear a bit thin; but, as the centuries wear on, the portraits of kings and courtiers are supplemented with memorable portraits of cultural figures. Samuel Pepys, for example.
Or, better yet, this image of William Wordsworth celebrating his 70th birthday atop Hellvellyn, one of the high peaks of the Lake District.
We hardly did justice to the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; we will have to come back!
After a bit of Christmas shopping requested by certain members of the family, we took the tube up to Hampstead and did a walking tour of this remarkable village within London. Most of Hampstead was built in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. There are many streets with lovely terraces like Church Row:
Down the hill is St. John at Hampstead, from 1747.
The church is mainly notable as the resting place of the painter John Constable.
We did a fairly long circuit through the twisting lanes and alleys of the town as twilight descended.
Just before returning to the tube station, we looked down the hill toward central London and found ourselves confronted by the Shard, the city’s tallest building.
Dinner was a return engagement at the Drapers Arms, a gastropub in Islington; this was Sue’s second and my third visit.
Last year’s meal had been splendid, and we tried a near-repeat, with the centerpiece a fabulous cote de boeuf. The food was still very good, but we were at a pub on a Saturday night and our table was near the bar. The result was cacophony. Think any restaurant in Brooklyn–with much better food but much more noise. We probably won’t go back.