LONDON to HARWICH – artefacts and ferries
Saturday – What a wonderful night’s sleep. Even though I was on the sofa bed I could stretch out and it was great. This is our hotel. I remembered to take a photo of it this morning because we were so tired last night. We shower and get everything packed and then head out on the Maccas trail for breakfast. But before doing so we head to the knight to take his photo – but alas the street is closed off by big black gates. Well, that’s a bummer for sure.
Nevermind, we get a chance to see a bit of London before the people start coming out of the Underground. We catch glimpses of St Pauls and rooftops of buildings with interesting statues but I don’t have a clue what they are. As London has the 2012 Olympics there is a lot of roadwork (we just can’t get away from it can we?) being done not to mention building works and a general big, big tidy up improvement plan like what happened in Sydney for the 2000 show.
Walking around the streets of London – nothing is open for breakfast because it is really early. Finally we spy a Maccas hiding away in a tiny hole in the wall. I order my usual bacon and cheese muffin – but they don’t have muffins only rolls. Juice and coffee – and then we are off to Liverpool Street station again. We are leaving our bags at the ‘Left Luggage’ office so that we do not have to carry them around with us. We will then collect them this afternoon as we head to Harwich to catch our ferry – but more about that later.
Today K&T are heading out to experience the world of Dr Who and I am off to one of my favourite places – The British Museum. Last time I was there I had film and was limited on the amount of photos I could take. Today I have digital – whacko – so I can take thousands of photos. Well, maybe not thousands but quite an amount more than my previous visit. We will meet back at Liverpool Street at 4.30pm.
Off we go on our separate ways – arriving at the British Museum there is an Australian Season Walkabout but it is the usual stuff most of which I can see any weekend walking around Sydney Harbour. I concentrate on what I call ‘real history’ the ancient civilizations.
Of course I cannot put all my photos in this blog and it is so difficult to select – so I will concentrate on the highlights.
Over the past weeks I have been listening to the Audio Tours by Rick Steves. They are a great way to get accustomed to what I will be seeing here at the Museum and for some of the places we will be visiting in Europe. Rick will become a great friend of both Kylie and me.
First of the highlights – when you enter the Museum you are greeted with this magnificent open space. This is the Great Court. In 1997, the Museum’s library department was relocated to the new British Library building in St Pancras and there was an opportunity to re-open the space to public. An architectural competition was launched to re-design the courtyard space. There were over 130 entries and it was eventually won by Lord Foster. The £100 million project was supported by grants of £30 million from the Millennium Commission and £15.75 million from the Heritage Lottery Fund. The Great Court was opened on 6 December 2000 by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.
It is here that there is an Information Kiosk, Souvenir Shop, several food bars and most important of all historical objects. Doorways from the Great Court lead to several exhibitions. Ready for your tour? Let’s go – – there will be little history lessons along the way of course.
Walking around the Great Court I spy several objects of interest including a quartzite head of the Egyptian Pharaoh Amenhotep III. The Pharaoh gazes out over the many, many tourists and most probably thinks ‘where the bloody hell am I?’
From a time of 1400BC, the head shown here wears the red crown, symbol of Lower Egypt and is from his mortuary temple at Thebes; the brown quartzite from which the statue was carved probably comes from the same region. The mortuary temple of Amenhotep III (1390-1352 BC) on the west bank of the Nile at Thebes contained a large number of statues. This head is one of the largest, after the nearby Colossi of Memnon.
Just love Ancient Egypt and I think if I had my life over I would have become an Egyptologist.
There are so many Egyptian exhibitions at The Museum. Statues of royalty, officials and ordinary people are all on display together with the items they took with them to the afterworld. The craftsmanship is exquisite and has lasted thousands of years.
There will more Egyptian goodies later on but we now go to the Land of Caesar and Imperial Rome.
There are many busts of Roman Emperors and I wonder if they really looked like this or did the sculptors do a little bit of cosmetic surgery. I like to think it is the former.
This is the Emperor Augustus. Augustus was the first Emperor and was very much the hub of the new political order. People needed to see his image in a society devoid of mass media and the use of sculpture as propaganda was very important. The reign of Augustus initiated an era of relative peace known as the Pax Romana (The Roman Peace). Despite continuous wars or imperial expansion on the Empire’s frontiers and one year-long civil war over the imperial succession, the Mediterranean world remained at peace for more than two centuries. He reformed the Roman system of taxation, developed networks of roads with an official courier system, established a standing army and the Praetorian Guard, created official police and fire-fighting services for Rome, and rebuilt much of the City during his reign. Augustus died in 14 AD at the age of 75.
A very interesting set of busts to say the least. This is the Emperor Hadrian on the left and his lover Antinous.
Hadrian (AD 117-138) like all Roman Emperors used statues to diffuse his image across the Roman world. The statues usually showed the Emperor as a general or a priest. This bust shows Hadrian naked. This Greek style showed that the Emperor was heroic and almost god-like.
Antinous was a Greek from Bithynia (Northern Turkey). He met Hadrian in the 120’s and joined his court. In AD130 Antinous drowned in the River Nile and Hadrian mourned him openly and he was worshipped as a god. Statues show him as the Egyptian God Osiris or here as the Greek God Dionysus.
Next there is a long gallery of many books, statues and tourists. There is not one theme here but it is a collection of items from the ancient world to the relatively modern.
Assyrian Winged Lions – about 883-859 BC. Used as protection for the royal palace from the forces of chaos, a pair of guardian figures that flanked one of the entrances into the throne room of Ashurnasirpal II (883-859 BC). An entrance to the royal palace of King Ashurnasirpal II (883-859 BC) at Nimrud was flanked by two colossal winged human-headed lions. A gigantic standing lion stood at the entrance to the nearby Temple of Ishtar, the goddess of war. Stone mythological guardians, sculpted in relief or in the round, were often placed at gateways to ancient Mesopotamian palaces, to protect them from demonic forces. They were known to the Assyrians as lamassu.
The never ending tourists with cameras who will not move out of the way are known as ‘pains in the arse’.
Back to Egypt. Walking through a long corridor full of statues, sarcophagus and treasures I just don’t know where to look first. So I will start at the beginning where I find an old friend – Amenhotep III.
Amenhotep III (sometimes read as Amenophis III; also known as Amenhotep the Magnificent) was the ninth pharaoh of the Eighteenth dynasty. According to different views, he ruled from 1386 to 1349 BC after his father Thutmose IV died. His reign was a period of unprecedented prosperity and artistic splendour, when Egypt reached the peak of her artistic and international power.
When Amenhotep III died, he left behind a country that was at the very height of its power and influence, commanding immense respect in the international world; however, he also bequeathed an Egypt that was wedded to its traditional political and religious certainties under the Amun priesthood.
Of course no tour would be complete unless it included an audience with Ramses the Great. Ramesses II (c. 1303 BC – July or August 1213 BC) was the third Egyptian pharaoh (reigned 1279 BC – 1213 BC) of the Nineteenth dynasty. He is often regarded as the greatest, most celebrated, and most powerful pharaoh of the Egyptian Empire. His successors and later Egyptians called him the “Great Ancestor.” Ramesses II led several military expeditions into the Levant, re-asserting Egyptian control over Canaan. He also led expeditions to the south into Nubia.
At age fourteen, Ramesses was appointed Prince Regent by his father Seti I. He is believed to have taken the throne in his late teens and is known to have ruled Egypt for 66 years and 2 months. He was once said to have lived to be 99 years old, but it is more likely that he died in his 90th or 91st year. Ramesses II celebrated an unprecedented 14 sed festivals (the first held after thirty years of a pharaoh’s reign, and then every three years) during his reign—more than any other pharaoh. On his death, he was buried in a tomb in the Valley of the Kings; but his body was later moved to a royal cache where it was discovered in 1881, and is now on display in the Cairo Museum. (See my journal Mystery of History).
Ancient Greece and the Elgin Marbles. I know I wrote about them in my journals of 1998 but they can stand being spoken about again. These are the most magnificent sculptures from the Parthenon in Athens. If you want a history lesson on them click here. I will just put some photos and you can admire for yourself –
Are they not the most magnificent things you have seen? Anyway time to move on. I have spent about 4 hours here and really I could do with another day or two just so that I could sit for a while and stare into the eyes of so many ancients and also admire more closely their handiwork.
On the way out I visit the Rosetta Stone but now it is under glass – I suppose what with all the tourists, there was a chance of damage – so I am glad I got to see it when it was au natural.
Time is getting away and I still have to visit Lincoln Inn Fields. This sounded a really interesting place on the web, but it is a bugger to find. And after walking around – the Fields are closed. I am not impressed so will not put any link here. So now it is back to Liverpool Street. My poor little tootsies want to rest but no rest for the wicked and we move on.
Arriving at the station I get something to eat and also some peppermint foot cream for my foots. All of a sudden there is some noise and police and what’s this? A protest march against immigration comes from Liverpool Street and through the station to get to another street on the other side. Well, that was exciting. Waiting, waiting K&T arrive and they look as worn out as I feel. They have enjoyed visiting The Doctor and seeing other sights so all in all we have had a good day.
We collect our luggage and head off to catch the train on the first of our rail journeys. This journey is to Harwich where we will board our overnight ferry to Amsterdam. When we booked our ferry tickets with Stena we also booked the train journey through to Amsterdam so of course we get into a First Class Carriage. We realise that it should be a standard carriage but the ticket lady doesn’t ask us to move when the tickets are checked. Our faith in human nature is restored.
It is about a two hour trip and we have to change at Manningtree. Now that’s a good idea as this station has a beer garden. Drinking our way across Europe – what could be better. My soccer lads back at home gave me a farewell present of some funds so that I can do just that. They sure know the way to my heart! I have a really nice glass of wine, Kylie has a beer and Tyler has Coke. Just what The Doctor ordered. Our train arrives and we should get into Harwich about 6.30pm.
Boarding for the ferry starts around 8.30pm so we will have a bit of a wait. We are so tired that we lay down on the seats but once down it is near impossible to get back up. There is a little kiosk so we get something light to eat as we may have dinner on the boat. Tyler has asked for the remote to the TV and has found – Doctor Who. He is happy. About 8pm a whole lot of people arrive so we decide to get the legs moving and line up. Soon it is time to board so off we go, provide our tickets and passports and we are given two tickets. Unfortunately one ticket has my name and Tyler’s and the other Kylie’s. Well that won’t do so I tell Tyler that he is in with Kylie – Kylie is not impressed. She thought she was going to have a quiet night – but no such luck for her.
It is such a long walk up the ramps to the boat I think maybe we are walking to Amsterdam. We finally get into the cabins and they are great. We cannot see much outside as it is now dark but this is the inside.
Doesn’t that look good? The bed is really wide and comfy and the window is about a metre wide. We decide not to have anything to eat as all we want to do is have a shower and then sleep. The shower is fabulous – so in my jim jams and jump into bed.
We have a wake-up call at 6.30am so the sooner we get to bed the better. Oh so comfortable – oh so tired – I am soon asleep – – –
Highlight of the day: At the Museum