Up early it was cold outside, -1, frost everywhere. The plan was a trip to London, not for christmas shopping, but for a cultural visit taking two photography exhibitions, and possibly the Leonardo exhibition at the National Gallery. We felt smug as Christmas shopping was all but done, if not wrapped. The roads to Berkhamsted were icy but the temperature was now a balmy +2. We nabbed the last parking space near the station, and jumped on the 0900 train to Euston.
I remembered that I had seen a photo of a Lego Christmas tree at St Pancras, so we agreed to swing by. It turned to be not as impressive as I imagined it might be. It was big, green and covered in lights and baubles tree, and 100÷ Lego. I took a few pictures while Helen resisted the lure of the champagne bar, then headed out to get the 59 back to Euston and on to the Imperial War Museum. It had started to rain.
We had booked up to see the Don McCullin exhibition the night before. Don McCullin is a famous war photographer, I am sure you will have see his work in the sunday supplements between the 60’s and 90’s. The most famous one is the close up of shell shocked soldier with the thousand yard stare. The exhibition was good with plenty of articles that McCullin had donated, including the Nikon with the AK47 bullet hole. The was an interesting interview video of McCullin and his stories of how he got into with anecdotes of war, and his subsequent shift away from war photography and into Landscape photography. We thought about lunch at IWM but decide that something on the Southbank near our next port of call might offer a better choice than the cafe.
We jumped back on the 59 bus and got off at Southbank, on Waterloo Bridge. The regular Slow Food market was on by the Haymarket, but although tempting it was too cold for al fresco eating. We even fore went buying some nice bread because we were travelling light and did not want any luggage.
Helen spotted a Pizza Express so we popped in for some fast food. It was the same one we took the took the Australians to some years, it might even have made it on to the blog, just.
Suitably replete we headed to The National Theatre to take a look at the Landscape photographer of the year exhibition, and it was brilliant, all the photos where printed and well lit, a real inspiration to any photographer. A sign of the times hardly any of the pictures were taken on film. Many used the Canon 10-22mm EFS lens that I like own and like so much. We headed out and took some pictures and video of the north bank of the Thames which was looking glorious in the winter sun.
Out final destination was the National Gallery se we jumped on the 159 over to Trafalgar Square. We asked at the desk they had tickets for 2030! Apparently people queue up at 0700 3 hours before the pace opens just to get tickets. We popped into Waterstones (waste of time) then jumped back on the 59 to Euston, where a fast train was waiting to take us back to Berkhamsted.
Some friendly French people sat in the seats near us, and after exchanging a few word in French they started asking me French grammar questions. is it Londonien or Londonienne? How should I know. We were back home by 17:00 for some left over soup from yesterday. All in all a great day out if a little cold.
The Video
