Click herefor Travelsleuth's London Cultural Highlights, November 2001.
Thanks to the ongoing rail chaos it may be quicker right now to reach London from Birmingham by flying via Amsterdam with KLM than it is to take the train. But do not let this deter you from visiting London during this holiday month.
Londoners love their city in December. The West End is a vibrant shopper's paradise with great stores like Fortnum & Masons, Harrods and Selfridge vieing for custom with mouthwatering window displays. Theatreland, concert halls and exhibition galleries, restaurants and pubs are thriving.
London is particularly blessed this winter with a number of interesting exhibitions. Here are just two that are on my list of 'Must See' experiences. I hope next week to add some comments about the exhibition of Turner watercolours that opens to the public at the Royal Academy this weekend to mark the 150th anniversary of his death. This promises to be another visual feast and essential viewing for art lovers.
The Treasures of Catherine the Great
Somerset House in the Strand overlooking the Thames between Westminster and Waterloo Bridges was recently returned to its true glory as one of London's great palaces. Designed by Sir William Chambers and begun in 1776, it took almost a century to complete. Chambers, who was onetime tutor of architecture to the Prince of Wales and later his Surveyer General when he became King George III, believed that his life's work was to "enrich and beautify the world". Kew Gardens, (which he laid out), its Chinese Pagoda, Orangery and temples, (which he designed), together with Somerset House, are part of his rich and beautiful legacy to London.
The government offices for which Somerset House was built by Chambers "in princely manner" have gone and fountains and seats replace the parked cars in the great central courtyard. Somerset House can now be seen in all its glory as one of London's most splendid examples of Palladian architecture. There could be no more fitting venue than this for the State Hermitage Museum of St.Petersburg, Russia, to open its permanent branch in London. The Queen Mother opened Somerset House to the public earlier in the year. Her favourite grandson Prince Charles opened the Hermitage Rooms in a wing of Somerset House last week.
The opening exhibition from the Hermitage is a stunner. It features 500 of the treasures collected by Russia's Catherine the Great, (1729-1796). 500 paintings, cameos, gems, porcelain, clocks and other objets
