Tea, Marble, and Mummies in London

My Mom's cousin, Lynne, and her daughter-in-law, Sonia, came to England! They spent what sounded like a fabulous time down in Bath and Cornwall before heading up to London. As fates would have it, I was only able to go down to London for one of the days they visited, but we sure made that day a fun one! 

Puttin' on the Ritz

Lynn offered to take Sonia and I for afternoon tea at The Ritz - what a treat!! I booked the 7:30 direct train from home so that I could arrive in plenty of time to make it to the Ritz for our 11:30 booking. Sadly, my direct train was cancelled, so I had to scramble to get to Leeds and, luckily, caught the next train to London (I even got a seat!) that was to arrive only a half-hour later than my original itenerary. The train arrived even 10 minutes later than that, so I had to rush to the tube and then rush to the Ritz. I made it just a few minutes late, breathless and a bit frazzled, but I made it! 

Tea, sandwiches, scones, cakes. Oh, my! 

The afternoon tea was delicious! The staff was beyond gracious, even offering an arm to Lynne as she walked down steps. The doorman held the world's largest umbrella over all three of us as we walked the ten feet from door to taxi. We felt like three princesses! 

Because it was fairly miserable weather that day, we decided to head directly to the British Museum for the afternoon. I had just visited the British Museum (to see my recent Solo Trip to London post here), but it is so large, there was plenty still to see. Lynne and Sonia wanted to see the Rosetta Stone, Elgin Marbles, and the Egyptian mummies. I had only seen the Rosetta Stone, so almost everything we saw was new to me. Seriously, I could probably go to the British Museum two or three more times and still see whole new wings, the place it just that big.  

Bust of old man 

Horse

After a quick stop to see the Rosetta Stone, we made our way to the ancient Greek section, eventually seeing the Elgin marbles. Along the way we got another tourist to take our photo with one of the marble horses. I like this photo because you get a good idea of the size of some of these statues, whereas the more up-close pictures shows the detail much better. 

Big horse!

As Lynne explained it, Elgin was a British military leader way back when who saw all of these amazing statues in and around the Acropolis in Greece that were deteriorating. He had them chopped off their foundations and shipped to England for posterity. Greece wants them back, and this is still a point of contention between the two countries. 

Greek marble

I took a lot of photos of the Greek statues, but I think among my favorite were the flowy female figures. How the sculpters were able to chip and chisle the movement of fabric and shape of the body underneath the gowns out of hard, cold marble amazes me. 

Flow-y marble dress

Another flow-y marble dress

After being amazed by the skill and beauty in Grecian sculptures, we made our way upstairs to the Egyptian mummy exhibit. This exhibit prooved to be very busy as it was half-term (school holiday; spring break) in England and every school-age kid loves mummies... and their parents love a free museum! That said, the three of us all really got a kick out of the exhibit, too. I kept looking at the mummies wondering what this person would have thought had they known hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of people would oogle at their mummified body in a museum every year.

I want my mummy! 

The museum not only had wrapped mummified bodies, but also skeletons, partially un-wrapped mummies, and a fully unwrapped, mummified body. 

This poor dead head and his facial reconstruction

Partially unwrapped mummy

Mummified body

The museum also displayed the body of a murder victim. Stabbed in the chest, this poor guy (or criminal?) fell as is and the surrounding earth naturally mummified him. 

Naturally mummified murder victim

After the mummy exhibit, we made our way up to the Viking artifacts I had looked at a few weeks before. And then it was time to say goodbye. Lynne was nice enough to share her cab with me, so I was able to head directly back to Kings Cross without tromping across London in the rain. 

The train ride home was uneventfull, and I was back home at a fairly reasonable hour, as I had to get up the next morning to pack and depart for our weekend adventure to Northumberland. More on that trip in upcoming blog posts...