Last one, I promise!
Calum (10) is studying the Victorians at school just now and so wanted to visit the Royal Albert Hall. Since it is within walking distance of the 3 museums we visited on Friday we started off there.
Right across the road from it is the Albert Memorial. Remember how I said that Victoria's memorial at Buckingham Palace was no where near as grand?
The memorial is a good place to get a photo of the concert hall though.
When it was first used for concerts, the Victorians soon realised that the lovely domed roof gave a terrible acoustic. Inside the building they put lots of upturned domes that look like a field of mushrooms to help with the sound. look out for that the next time you see a televised concert from the Royal Albert Hall (the Remembrance Day one will be coming up soon!)
In yesterday's post I mentioned that we had visited HMS Belfast. This was Thursday's trip and I highly recommend it. The ship is really big and there is so much to see on it. It's amazing to think that you are walking about on this ship that has seen action during the war.
We were especially keen to see inside the big gun turret because during WWII the boys' great-grandfather (my dad's dad) worked on the big guns of a gunship, although not on the Belfast. He survived two separate torpedo attacks and was commended for bravery.
The engine room on board was just unbelievable. To think that this all made sense to someone!
These are just a small corner of it.
Down below the waterline of the ship was the shell storage, in a heavily armoured room. Just in case of airstrikes!
Getting about the ship involves going up and down lots of these steep ladders.
During the war the name of the ship wouldn't be on a sailors hat. That way if they were picked up, the enemy wouldn't know what ship they were from. I think!
Not content with trying on one hat, David wanted to try them all.
The Belfast sits in the shadow of Tower Bridge...
....and after we were done exploring the ship we took a clipper boat down the Thames to our next museum, the Maritime Museum.
We sat at the back and watched Tower Bridge behind us.
Getting smaller....
...and smaller
...until it was gone.
After a wonderfully rich week it was soon time to head home.
The excitement of the holiday wasn't quite over yet, as we still had a long train journey on a big fast train ahead of us.
I am in a state of heaven right now as I am reading through your London visit! I love every single picture you posted and could comment on each one hehehe! I feel as though I was there for a little bit and can admire and share in all the joyous enthusiasm of everything! Benjamin took me to Europe for our honeymoon and our first stop was London (only one night sadly) and then Italy, Spain and France. We quickly realized we didn't want to end our trip in France and only wanted to get back to England. Which we did and ended up in Oxford for five days :P
ReplyDeleteEngland was amazing and I dream of going back again one day and of course going to Scotland as well and visiting a very special family ;)
Your honeymoon trip sounds amazing! My husband took me to France too for our honeymoon, to Paris.. I've never been to Spain or Italy though. You do need more than a day in London, so you will have to come back :0)
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