Art, Anyone?

Van Gogh, Vermeer, and Renoir are just a few of the artists whose works make up the impressive collection of London’s National Gallery. I spent two hours inside the walls of this treasure trove and as I’ve come to expect I was barely able to scratch the surface of what it has to offer. I wandered off by myself to really take in the collection and found myself lost amongst the beautiful works. Even though the collection holds many well known works by famous artists (like Van Gogh’s Sunflowers) I found that I really fell in love with a few works by artists that I have never heard of. Check out Boilly’s A Girl at a Window. It was painted in a black and white color scheme but still seems so real that you wait for the fish to swim around in their bowl.

I also visited two major churches today: St. Martin in the Field and St. Paul’s Cathedral, two more examples of stunning architecture and history. We ate lunch in the crypt under St. Martin’s were it was cool and dark. By the way, there are still people buried down there. Weird to be eating in a cemetery but it didn't make me lose my appetite! The church was built by Henry VIII for the people of London and had a very interesting window over the altar.

We took a wonderful guided tour of St. Paul’s Cathedral and learned all about the hidden secrets of its architecture. Later, we climbed over 500 stairs to the outer dome of the Cathedral and took in the sights of London from a bird’s eye view. It was amazing to look out over the streets of this historic city and see how the old and new intertwine. We took pictures of the Gherkin (completed in 2004) from the top of 400 year old St. Paul’s.

Can you see the teensy-weensie London Eye in the background?