As the largest city in England, London looms large on most travellers’ ‘bucket list’. From the Romans, through a long history of Kings and Queens, to the days of the British Empire to Brexit and its challenges, England has long caught our imagination. It remains in our headlights – whether you follow the English Premier League football, Wimbledon, Harry Potter, the Crown or the Bank of England and the financial ‘City’. TravelSampler.world offers you a very small sample of this global city. Since we last visited the ABBA phenomena has captured London – it’s high on our wish list!
We’d love to hear about your favourite experiences in London (or Beyond London) – drop us a line and a photo via ideas@travelsampler.world
Everything you’ve heard about how extraordinary the V&A is, is true. It may well be the ‘world’s greatest museum of art and design’ – we can’t confirm that because we haven’t visited them all (yet!). But it must be right at the top of the list of exceptional treasure houses.
Pre-Covid we re-visited the Islamic gallery at the V&A. In troubled times it was a potent reminder of the power of art to capture the life and times of people and places. The echoes of a thousand years of changing culture, fashion and history are there in the carpets, wall hangings and ceramics collected by the V&A. The many influences that have ebbed and flowed to and from the Islamic world are all reflected in the objects on display.
If, like us, you are obsessed by creativity and design, the textiles in the Islamic Middle East gallery are calling for your full and undivided attention. Sophisticated drafting, combined with deeply traditional craft techniques come together to create pieces that are today recognised for their sublime artistry. The enormous scale at which the craftsmen worked is hard to comprehend – to visualise the wall sized finished carpets with their intricate and interlinked series of repeating patterns speaks to highly developed conceptual skills. And the talent to turn those ideas into beautiful art.
The Victoria and Albert Museum is better known by its abbreviated name, the V&A. However, there is nothing abbreviated about the Cast Courts gallery. Here you will find colossal examples of architecture and icons from across Europe. The galleries in which the Cast Courts are displayed by necessity have vaulted ceilings reaching several floors high. And dividing the two galleries is a mezzanine level that provides an excellent viewing point to take in the scale and impact of the works.
The Cast Courts are a dilemma. The objects on display are not the original sculptures, rather they are plaster cast reproductions. Over time debate has existed about the ethics of creating casts, with some curators and historians believing the process damages the originals. Conversely others argue without these casts we could not know the originals at all with many now degraded by poor restoration, or eroded by pollution and over-zealous tourism. Hmmm.
What is certain is that the scale and impact of these works make a major impression on every visitor. The Cast Courts are one of the V&A’s most popular galleries. If you can’t get to Florence to see Michelangelo’s David the cast at the V&A is a very impressive alternative. The viewing gallery also includes smaller examples and videos of the casting process and is accessed as the Sculpture gallery on Level 3.
Victoria and Albert Museum, Cromwell Road, Knightsbridge, London.
The Tower of London appears, usually with dark menace, throughout the last one thousand years of English history. Its been a place of mystery, murder and beheadings. In early years the worst of the Crown’s rivals found themselves restricted to the Tower – sadly these ‘criminals’ included two very young boys who disappeared into the depths of the Tower never to be heard from again.
The Tower is actually many buildings, surrounded by a deep moat and walls. Originally the moat was filled by the River Thames and the walls included a gate opening directly onto the river. Today the Tower is surrounded by bustling streets and pedestrian sidewalks along the riverfront. In 2014 the moat was been filled with poppies commemorating lives lost in WW1. You may have seen sombre yet spectacular photos online – this video on Youtube explains the impact the installation had. Read about the inspiration for the commemoration, grounded in “Blood swept lands and seas of red where angels fear to tread” here in The Guardian.
Today, there are still people living within the walls of the Tower of London, although now by choice. Yeomen warders and families live in the small houses that adjoin the external walls. It’s a surprising site to see a child’s bicycle leaning up against a wall that has seen so much grief in years gone by.
Definitely worth a visit if you haven’t been, even on a gray day like the day we were there.
The Tower of London is also home to the Crown Jewels. Here in the most secure of locations lie the crowns, staff and orbs that have crowned their Kings and Queens for hundreds of years.
Seeing the Crown Jewels brings home the long history, and tradition they represent. It is impossible not to glimpse the wealth and established power that emanates from these articles of government and faith. For they are more than a collection of fabulous jewels and master-craftsmanship. They are the embodiment of the power of the regent and that persons’ uncontested position as head of state and church.
Many of the individual jewels have their own history and the stories of how they came to be part of the collection are told alongside the displays. Other noteworthy royal artefacts are also on display – including an ornate silver punchbowl big enough to bath in.
The Crown Jewels really are the ‘crown jewels’ within the Tower of London. Like the Tower itself, they are definitely worth seeing – if only to catch a glimpse of understanding of the great reverberation through the foundations of the British society when Queen Elizabeth died at the end of her 70 year reign.
We visited the Tower of London and the Crown Jewels on a crisp winter day. Many visitors make a bee-line for the Crown Jewels, and by the look of the queueing lines outside the display in the high season there may be a considerable wait. The display itself is not enormous, but well-staged and the designers have taken on the lessons of theme park operators to manage the queue. We’d suggest you go early, and if possible go in the low season.
New displays were introduced in 2023 – have you been? Tell us about it at ideas@travelsampler.world!
The London Underground was the first underground rail system in the world, and is now more than 160 years old (some key dates here). ‘The Tube’ as it’s affectionately known is an interconnected web running all directions underneath London’s streets. It moves hundreds of thousands of locals and tourists alike, every day. The trains are reliable, clean and on time. In peak hour that remains true – except much more crowded. Some stations are deep underground and serviced by enormous, long escalators. Many are not designed for people with mobility challenges.
The Tube gets its own entry here on Travelsampler.world because of its instantly recognisable map. From a design perspective the Tube map is a triumph. It takes a complex interwoven network of lines and stations and through simple use of colour and a diagrammatic approach makes the system easy to understand. Each line has its own colour and is clearly differentiated from the rest. The Tube Map is not geographically accurate and doesn’t purport to be. It is however, indispensable for getting around London. Every station, every train and every carriage has the Tube map displayed making it easy to navigate about the network and swap train lines to reach your destination.
The map used today is based on a version designed in 1931 by Harry Beck. It’s instantly recognisable and has set the standard for other transport systems across the world. Here the London Transport Museum provides a history of this ground-making advance in cartography and graphics. And remember, when using the Tube – to ‘Mind the gap’!
For more on England, see our Beyond London page.
