On Friday, 9/12, I headed for Picadilly in the morning, to go by a small art gallery. The gallery had a showing of photographs of Kate Bush by 2 different photographers (showing that month because of the concerts). Before stopping in to the gallery, I found a somewhat fancy restaurant in which to have breakfast, and ended up ordering kedgeree. The version I was served is mostly as described in the wiki, except that it had a single poached egg on top instead of boiled eggs, and it contained salmon as well as haddock. It was pretty good.
I looked over the gallery show pretty quickly, as there weren’t a huge number of photos. Some of them were interesting, but not enough for me to want to buy the KB art books by either artist.
After that I headed to the Institute of Contemporary Arts. I was interested in looking at exhibits they had, as well as seeing a movie in their theater in the afternoon. I bought the film ticket, and proceeded to start going through exhibits – which there weren’t many of. It did not take me long to go through the place, so I had a couple of hours free before the movie was to start.
I ended up walking over to Trafalgar Square. Here is the famous column topped by Admiral Horatio Nelson:
and one of the lions around the base of the column:
The National Gallery, on the far side of the square:
One of the fountains in the square had a worker wading through and cleaning it:
And here is the Fourth Plinth, which apparently has often-changing art installations:
Blue chicken currently on show.
After taking these pics, I went into the National Gallery and looked at all sorts of paintings for an hour or so. I then headed back to the ICA for the film. I was seeing an Iranian film – Manuscripts Don’t Burn. It was a well done movie, though quite bleak.
After the movie I went in search of dinner, and chose an Indian restaurant near the West End theater district. I had vegetarian thali (always a good thing to order if you want to try a number of dishes). Afterward, I walked around some of the West End, before heading to the National Gallery a second time and going through just about the rest of it before they closed at 9pm.
From there I walked to the Thames, crossed over the Jubilee Bridge, and headed along the south bank toward Westminster bridge. I caught the bus near the bridge and headed back to sleep my final night in London.