AoC - Day the Fourth: in which I climb a lot of stairs and get very soggy

I forgot to mention in yesterday's post that it costs 12 pounds (about $19 as of this writing) to tour the War Rooms, and it's free to get into the National Gallery.

Onward.

Sometimes life requires a high-protein breakfast, especially when you're up and around, out and about all day long. The Lime Tree Hotel serves what might at first look like a heavy breakfast, but is actually just what you need for a day out - you never know what you may take a fancy to doing, as you will soon see.

The hotel's traditional breakfast includes a scrambled or poached egg, bacon (more like Canadian bacon than the streaky, fatty stuff), a small sausage link, and a side of vegetables, usually mushrooms or grilled tomatoes, plus toast, orange juice, and tea or coffee. All of it served hot and fresh sent up on the dumb waiter from the basement kitchen. And the British are so much more reasonable about portion sizes. You get just enough on your plate to fill you up, but you don't feel overstuffed.

Since a lot of people were staying at this hotel at the time (lower off-season room rates, you know), I never knew whom I'd be sitting with in the cute breakfast room (the brown wallpaper with the Georgian silhouetted faces just teetered between tacky and charming, and the placemats displayed Victorian renderings of some of the famous sites in the city). One of my breakfast companions was a retired gentleman whose wife died of cancer last summer. They had always traveled together. This was his first trip without her, and his five daughters were nervous about him traveling alone. I'd say he was heartier than they gave him credit for. Another couple, a semi-retired civil engineer and his wife, were traveling all over the UK , and had stopped in London for a week. They told me all about sitting on a rock near Hadrian's Wall, eating bacon sandwiches. Another family had "come up from the country" to spend a week "in town." Apparently, if you say you're "going up to town" in the UK, it means you're going to London.

Thus sated with protein, I spent the morning at St Paul's Cathedral. There's a 10-pound (about $16 as of this writing) entry fee. Sigh, no pictures allowed in this one either. But here's the outside:



And here's a statue of Queen Anne, who was ruling when the church was completed.



Here's its garden side:



Five churches have occupied this site over the centuries, the first in 604. Christopher Wren designed the current one. Originally, he was commissioned to repair the previous one, even though he wanted to tear it down and start from scratch. He was overruled, but then the Great Fire of 1666 overruled those who overruled Wren, so he got his way in the end because the old church burned down. Wren's version is open and spacious and light inside the cathedral, whereas Westminster Abbey feels a little cramped and dim, despite its size. The nave doesn't have any adornments or paintings on the ceiling, per Wren's design. But those Victorians just can't leave well enough alone, and they added (some say, overdid) decorative elements near and around and above the high altar later. The ceiling mosaics look as though they're glittering - in fact, the tiles are set at angles to catch the light.

St Paul's was an important psychological symbol during World War II. Since it miraculously withstood 28 bombs dropped on it in one day during the Blitz, then as far as the people were concerned, there was hope for winning the war. Churchill declared that at all costs, St Paul's must be protected, even if that meant sacrificing other buildings. Citizens took turns standing guard inside. Their job was to extinguish any incendiary bombs that might fall in it - only two of the bombs did any damage. Another bomb fell just outside the church, but did not explode. Other citizens hauled it away and defused it. There's a plaque dedicated to these people near the entrance. There are candle stations nearby, too. I paid another 60p and lit a candle for you. And one for them.

The Duke of Wellington has a huge memorial in the middle of the nave. The top of it features a statue of Wellington on his horse. This statue is not without some controversy. First, some thought the horse was sacrilegious, although if I recall my Bible stories correctly, God created animals before creating man, so I don't see what the fuss is about. Copenhagen (the horse) was Wellington's trusty companion. You couldn't have one without the other (Copenhagen even got his own state funeral). Then there was the question of which way the horse should face. If his head faced the altar, his bum would be greeting people as they walked in. Then again, you don't want his bum facing the altar either, so worshipers and visitors were just going to have to look politely in another direction.

You can actually touch Henry Moore's sculpture of the Mother and Child in the north quire aisle. Although it's an abstract piece, it's easy to tell what it represents - birthing, nurturing, protecting, and worrying over a child.

John Donne preached at the Cathedral, and there's a creepy sculpture of him wrapped in a death shroud in one of the alcoves.

Wellington's tomb as well as Admiral Nelson's tomb are in the crypt. Wren's burial plot only has a simple marker (at his request). His epitaph plainly states, "Reader, if you seek his monument, look around you." Florence Nightingale is here as well.

You can get some exercise by climbing the stairs (all 528 of them) to the top of the outer dome, where you can get an amazing view of London. No, there's no elevator, and it's all spiral staircases, some between two walls - sometimes the walls hug you; sometimes you get some space - some are freestanding wrought-iron staircases. There's one way up and another way down - no turning back once you get started.

Of course I climbed them! You expected otherwise?

It's not as bad as it sounds - there are places where you can rest. I approached it like interval training - climb a hundred or so steps to the nearest landing and have a rest, climb the next hundred and then rest, etc. If you're not that ambitious, you can stop off at lower points along the way. The first major stop is the Whispering Gallery (257 steps). This is at the fattest part of the inner dome. The acoustics are so perfect that if you stand on one side of it, and whisper something against the wall, someone on the opposite side, 170 feet away, can hear what you said perfectly, as though you were right next to them - it's true, I tried it with the tour guide. If you lean over the railing, you can see directly down over the altar area.

The next major stop is the Stone Gallery (another 119 steps). You can go outside and see some of the London skyline through the high stone railings. Here are a few pictures I took from there.





Finally, if you're fit and don't give up easily and heights don't bother you, you come out onto the Golden Gallery (the last 152 steps), which has an alarmingly narrow balcony with a waist-high railing, but it goes all the way around the tip of the dome. Some pictures from there:





And then you get to go all the way back down again, squeezing back into this narrow space:



I had lunch in the crypt (what is it with cafes in crypts in this city?), and then I caught a train to Oxford ($11 for a round-trip ticket!). And that's when it really started to rain.

I know someone who works in administration at Oxford, so I was to have a private, half-day walking tour of some of the colleges and the city. I can't say enough nice things about Jonathan and his family for taking time out for me on a cold and wet day.

Many famous people have studied at Oxford, including 25 British Prime Ministers, 30 international leaders, 12 saints, 86 Archbishops of Canterbury, seven poets laureate, and an impressive list of writers such as John Fowles, Theodor Geisel (Dr Seuss), Evelyn Waugh, Lewis Carroll, Aldous Huxley, Oscar Wilde, C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, Graham Greene, Phillip Pullman, Percy Bysshe Shelley, John Donne, A. E. Housman, W. H. Auden, and Philip Larkin.

Supposedly, 80% of British university novels are about Oxford, and most of them are written by former students reminiscing about their own days as Oxford students. (I came across this in Oxford: A Literary Guide by John Dougill, which I picked up in a nearby book shop.)

Oxford is a pretty and walkable town, even in a chilly downpour. Jonathan said it’s one of those places in which you can tuck yourself away behind the walls and be happy. I would agree. The world may go insane outside (doesn’t it appear to be doing so lately?), but inside, where the atmosphere is ancient, seen-it-all, laid back, and lacking in hierarchy, you can be safe and content. I could go for that in a minute.







There are 38 colleges in the university, with about 20,000 students distributed among them. Some of the colleges are more well-known than others. The two I peeked into were Christ Church and Magdalen (pronounced "maudlin").

This is the courtyard of Christ Church (well, the left side of it, anyway).



And the right side:



Some of the scenes from the Harry Potter films were shot here. You might recognize this staircase:



The dining hall was the inspiration for the one you see in the Harry Potter films (obviously the one in the films was bigger to accommodate four houses’ worth of kids):



One of the custodians of the college (they're easily recognizable in bowler hats) told us about some of the paintings and stained glass windows.



Henry VIII and Cardinal Wolsey founded the college, which was originally named Cardinal College. However, they had a famous falling out “over a woman,” and Wolsey was kicked out.

Here is the Alice window. Alice is in the lower left corner:



The original Alice (for whom the Alice stories were written) was the the daughter of Henry George Liddell, who was the Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University and Dean of Christ Church College. Many of the scenes in the Alice stories were inspired by sites and people in and around Oxford and Christ Church. For instance, there is a small door just behind the high table (where the professors sit) that was the inspiration for the small door Alice tries to fit through. The "Rabbit Hole" was inspired by the stairs at the back of the main hall.

The custodian also told us that some of the paintings were done in such a way that they look as though the heads are slightly turning and following you as you walk down the aisle between the tables.

We also visited Kenneth Grahame’s grave, which was in a quiet and peaceful cemetery crowded with headstones and overgrown grass. I didn’t take a picture of his gravestone, as it seemed disrespectful to do so. The Wind in the Willows is such a wonderful book and great comfort reading. I’d have visited C.S. Lewis’ grave elsewhere in the town, but ran out of time.

Some pictures of Magdalen College:









C.S. Lewis taught here for almost 30 years. In fact, as busy as his academic life was, it’s amazing he found the time to write all the books and essays and speeches that he did. Oscar Wilde studied at Magdalen as well.

I noticed there wasn't any overt signage to let you know which college was which. Jonathan said that was deliberate. Each college is its own entity - if you don't know where a particular one is, you probably don't have any business being there.

Here is a pretty path down to the river.



You can go punting, too. Wasn’t quite up to it due to the weather.



We stopped for some tea in a cafe, and I noticed a woman sitting next to me working on a pastel portrait of two other women who were deep in conversation as a nearby table. I’d have photographed her, but she looked as though she was trying to be inconspicuous, so I didn’t want to blow her cover.

Here’s part of the Bodleian Library - a copyright library, rather than a lending library:



And the Radcliffe Camera, which is also part of the Bodleian:



This place just oozes history, it's overwhelming. The crowning touch - the pub where The Inklings met:



I considered taking a picture of the Rabbit Room inside the pub, but the locals were eyeing me with a "don't even think about it" look, so I passed.

We had a lovely dinner at an Italian restaurant. I had roasted vegetables with duck.

There are few things in my life that I’d change, but I think one of them would be to have gotten a degree at Oxford or Cambridge. I’ve not seen Cambridge yet, but given what I’ve seen of Oxford, it would more than do.

Another day trip in tomorrow's post.