MAMCO

I love museums.
And I really liked this one. But, people at the museum wasn´t polite and even asking them any questions respresented a problem.

Nevertheless, it´s full of great art and installations.

My favorites:

* Thomas Huber´s Fishtanks.
* Christo´s Corridor Store front
* Cècile Bart, suspense at Geneve
* Claudio Parmiggiani, Crypt: it´s really scary, yo have to enter a dark room, and then, after a few seconds inside there, you start seeing hand prints on the walls.

The Best!

Here the best things to do and visit in London:

*Best museums:
-Victoria and Albert Museum
-Museum of London
-Tate Modern
-Natinal History Museum
-Tate Britain


*Gardens and Parks:
-Kew Gardens
-Hampstead Heath
-Kenwood House
-Queen Mary´s Gardens
-Battersea Park
-St. James´s Park

*Walks:
-Regent´s Canal
-Southbank
-Hampstead
-Greenwich


*Shops:
-Oak Studio (8 Perrins Court, Hampstead)
-Daunt Books (193 Haverstock Hill, Belsize Park)
-Magma (8 Earlham St, Covent Garden)
-Shops in Columbia rd
-Rococo chocolates (321 Kings Road, Chelsea)
-Slanchogled (arts and craft materials, 66 Chalk Farm Rd, Candem)
-Urban Outfitters

*Markets:
-Borough Market
-Columbia Rd Market
-Portobello Market

*Neighbourhood
-Hampstead
-Belsize Park
-Chelsea
-Covent Garden

*Bars, Pubs, Restaurants:
-Caipirinha Spiritual Bar (Ferdinand St, Candem)
-The Toucan (19 Carlisle St, Soho)
-Jamie´s (Covent Garden)
-Freemason´s Arm (32 Downshire Hill, Hampstead)
-Oliver´s Fish and Chips (95 Haverstock Hill)

Victoria and Albert Museum and Queen Elizabeth II by Cecil Beaton

Queen Elizabeth II by Cecil Beaton

I went to see Cecil Beaton´s exhibition celebrating the Queen´s Diamond Jubilee. Beatiful portraits of the Queen and her family. I liked that vintage atmosphere, the dresses where fabulous, the flowers in the pictures set by Mr. Beaton himself, and the light is so dramatic in some pictures.
You can see the Coronation Ceremony photographs also.
My favorites, the one when the Queen is 16 years old, with her mother and sister, specially one in wich they appear with normal dresses, right after the War finished.

Victoria and Albert Museum


I think this is my favorite museum here in London. A lot of sculptures, some by Rodin. A beatiful garden. Fantastics galleries of Indian and Oriental Arts and ceramics. A whole room full of tapestries from the 1500. A lot of silverware (I love the Art Deco silverware). It´s great!
And I love the people that visit this museum, I don´t know, it´s special and peculiar. Really stylish people wondering through the rooms, some of them painting, it´s like they´re part of this magical place.

The museum shops has great things.

The British Museum

Last time I was in London, I visited the British museum.
But, visiting Fitzrovia without entering the museum feel incomplete, so, I went in.

It´s overwhelming to see the Parthenon´s sculptures and the Roseta stone. These things that were our civilization base and that I used to see their pictures in my school books.

Special mention to the Egyptian mommies. I think it´s a little sad to be buried thinking that would be your final place, and then, be displayed in a museum for everybody to see your mommy.
I didn´t know about the sacred bulls and their mommies, and the beatiful stone eyes they place on them.

I know I may be a little crazy about museums, but they just remind me when I was a child, that´s why I love them.

Roseta stone

Parthenon´s sculptures

Have an icecream when you leave the museum...

DAY 51: Hampstead Sunday

Weather is great these days. My mother thinks I was overreacting over the freezing cold past days.   

And, it´s not raining! (thanks God!)

We decided to stay in Hampstead (we were so tired from the day before...).

Started on the Heath, and went to the Well Walk and to the Hampstead Museum in Burgh House. 

The neighbourhood is so cozy, so beatiful (I love it, and I love living here!).

The Burgh House, has a nice garden with a Cafe where you can have some tea seated in hidden tables along the garden. the museum shows you the story of this area. In the shop I bought some organic tea, but has very nice mugs too.

Continued walking to Spaniards Road, the park is full of trees and hidden houses, and from some spots in the road you can see the London skyline.

The old Spaniards Inn (with Romantics such as Keats, or Byron among its clients) stands in a corner of the street.

I liked this house on Well Walk

Well walk

Burgh House (Museum of Hampstead)

Spaniards Inn

Kenwood House


I love parks and gardens. But these gardens are so beatiful, specially in this sunny Sunday afternoon!
It was full of families and children playing.

Kenwood House,  from 1.616 and remodeled  in 1764 where you can visit its rooms, some with original wall coverings. In the first floor a miniature collection with gorgeous brouches and women shoes buckles.

If you´re a fan of Notthin Hill movie, you can see where Julia and Hugh filmed.

But my favorite part was imagining I was wearing one of those incredible dreeses and walking through the park or painting under the trees, like in XVIII century.

Great place, you should visit it.

The view fron Kendwood House

Skyline

Way back home by Parliament Hill

We were tired, I tried to take a shortcut through the heath, ended up in Parliament Hill park.

I mean it: English parks are amazing!

The Bright Young Things

After Harrods, we started walking, and found out the Victoria and Albert Museum was still opened.
And then, a surprise!

It was Friday late at V&A (Once a month they open till 22,00)
This time was an oportunity of stepping into the glittering world of photographer Cecil Beaton.

The "Society of Bright Young Things" was a group that had become synonymous with glamour, money, celebrated names and lashings of snob appeal in the early 20s. They celebrated parties and meetings, some of them at V&A Museum. They must have been the coolest young people of their time. And that´s the reason this late night is named after them, to celebrate with vintage glamour.

Everybody was wearing a tiara and and top hats, and some 20s style beatiful dresses. A shame I didn´t know this before, I really would have enjoyed to wear a tiara while had a coctel drink.
Live jazz music, played by the Dixie Tricklers (http://www.dixieticklers.co.uk/), the coolest band!They sounded and looked so great (their vintage style is the best!).
Games (Scavenger hunt), lectures, live theater plays and lightdrawings altogether.

It was a lovely night.

Lightdrawings by Hugo Dalton

The Dixie Ticklers

Museum of London

Everything that happened here in London, from the prehistoric times, Roman era and so it´s been collected and it´s now exposed here.

My favorites:

* I got obsessed with Roman and medieval combs. Made by carving the wood, were really precious goods. So I took a lot of pictures of them.

* Fuddling Cup, 17th-century. Designed to confuse the drinker so it would have been impossible to take a drink without getting wet.

* Pleasure Gardens: they were on the edge of the city and privately run. For a small fee, visitors entered a beatiful garden with food and drinks served. An Orchestra played, and they finished with a firework display.

This rooms has dresses, and they play a short movie about one of these parties, it looksas if you were in one of those gardens.

* Victorian Walk: the museum displays objects and shopfronts from the Victorian London (a Toy Store, A barbers shop, A bakery, etc).

* Museum tour: a loved the story about the Great 1666 Fire in London.

Roman comb

Medieval combs

Fuddling cup, 17th Century

Pleasure Gardens

Toys at the Victorian Walk

The 60s

Queen Elizabeth II Coronatin souvenir