Wednesday-Thursday 23-24 April 2025 

London

Although I promised my Wednesday blog in yesterday's posting, I never was able to get around to it. So now I will begin with another two days in London starting with a busy Wednesday. 

I begin the day at Sloane Square, visiting my favorite London department store, Peter Jones. Smaller than pricier stores like Harrod's and Selfridge's, Peter Jones has an excellent selection of a variety of contemporary goods, housed in an art deco building that has recently gone through major interior re-designs.

From Sloane Square I take the Underground for a short ride to Blackfriar's and then it is around a 15-minute walk across the bridge and then along the south bank of the Thames to the Tate Modern Museum. I visited the original Tate when I was in London in May 2023, but this is my first visit to the Modern. Housed in a 19th-century power plant, the museum is a huge display of art of the 20th and 21st centuries. The collection has much in common with the Broad Museum in Los Angeles that I visited this past November, but the building here is probably four times the size of the Broad.

View of East London Business District from the Walk
Along the Thames (above), and View of St Paul's
Towers and Dome (below)

The museum building is much too large to encompass in one photograph:

The Massive Central Hall: View Toward Entrance (left); 

Mamam, Sculpture by Louise Bourgeois, 1999 (right)

Left:  The Dali Estate Wouldn't Let Me Use His Lobster-Phone to Call Home;

Center:  Private Joke About Mountain View Retirement Village;

Right:  I Just Like the Colors

After crossing another pedestrian bridge to the north bank of the Thames, I have a close-up view of Christopher Wren's St Paul's Cathedral (1710).

From here I head back to Sloane Square and a quiet evening in my flat.

Thursday

As I wind down my adventures and prepare for my trip back to New York City and Tucson, I decide I need a rest day on Thursday and stay in my flat until dinner time. It's a good occasion to start wrapping up and repacking so I won't have to rush on Saturday morning.

For dinner I make a reservation at a nearby Italian restaurant (yes, another Italian restaurant), Al Dente. The food and ambience is quite nice:  another glass of Montepulciano and  a bottle of Pellegrino; three pieces of tomato-garlic bruschetta, that I manage to make a mess around the table; tortellini aranciata; tiramisu in a jar for dessert.

I have one more day in London and two in New York, but they will have to wait until I return to Tucson.