We bought ourselves Oyster cards (for cheap London travel) and set off for central London.

Our first stop was Piccadilly Circus where we sat and watched the crowds and took the usual photos . Then we went to Regent Street to pick up our British Heritage cards and our free London map. The cards had been ordered and paid for from NZ. They are for 30 days and become activated on our first visit to a property. We will activate it on our drive and have it for our last 3 days when we are back in London.

We then went to the National Gallery as the queues were huge when we were here with Irene. John wouldn't let me pick up a guide as he didn’t want to worry about what we hadn’t seen. As there was so much to see this was a great move. We stayed for an hour and saw Rubens, Renoir, Monet, Gainsbourgh, Van Gogh and also Constable. It was really nice to go into the gallery and see all the English scenes after all the European scenes. As John loves Don McLean’s song 'Vincent’ (or ‘Starry Starry Night’) he really enjoyed the van Gogh paintings.

I looked around and couldn't see any notice about photography. At the same time no one was taking any photos so I assumed it was not allowed . A bit later an attendent told someone to put their camera away so I got it right. At the museum later photos were fine.

We had lunch at a Sports café by New Zealand House and John was able to watch some cricket (England v Pakistan) while we ate. We then walked to the British museum, looking at the sights of London on the way. Again we made it a short visit as there is so much to see we find it better to go before being overloaded with information.

We found the back entrance to the museum so it took us some time to get orientated from there. This time I did use a map and we headed for the Ancient Greek area. We looked at the Parthenon exhibit of a frieze without realising (until talking with Don later) that these were in fact the Elgin marbles. We had even read about Lord Elgin bringing them back without making the connection!! The museum even had a leaflet about its side of the argument which argues that these are international treasures and also that they would have deteriorated much more if they had been left .

The British museum’s leaflet was interesting. The Parthenon was built nearly 2500 years ago as a temple to Athena, it then was a church of the Virgin Mary, a mosque and finally a ruin. The sculptures had run around the top as a frieze. The first major damage to the sculptures happened when the temple converted to a church and then in 1687 when the Parthenon was a gunpowder store and the roof blew off. When Lord Elgin first saw the site only half the original sculptures remained and he had half of these transported to London with permission of the Ottoman authorities. The museum acquired then from Lord Elgin in 1816 and they have been on public display since.

Most of the sculptures are in Athens where they have been recently moved to a museum but they also reside in 6 other museums around Europe. The Greek Government would like them all back but the museum believes that the acquisition allowed them to be better preserved and also more widely studied . They make a good case but they also give the website to the Greek Ministry where another view is given.

At this stage John’s leg said ‘enough’ so we had a coffee than I left him while I went to see the money exhibit and the clock and watches exhibit. The money exhibit showed the history of money from commodity through to modern notes, with various displays of coins. The clocks and watches exhibit had a number of ‘open’ clocks so the mechanism could be seen. Outside there was a replica of the Strasburg clock with its various moving displays.

We then found the closest underground station and trained back to Acton. We had a good evening chatting over tea about travel, life in London, food and wine. Margaret and Don have a display of coasters on the hall from a visit to Moorcroft pottery and also fridge magnets that now overfill the fridge from various holidays.