Away in April 2011 – Day 13 Museum of London & Les Miserables

Barbican, Museum of London

Wednesday, 13 April 2011

Today was a bit warmer than yesterday without the cool wind.

Travelled by tube to St Paul’s station to visit the Museum of London. The Museum was fabulous – the sort of museum you could keeping coming back to with children or by yourself. Exhibits were all multifaceted and layered the visual, tactile and aural elements to create a fuller experience including recreated streets, hands on exhibits, activities for children. A lot of attention to detail with exhibits at varied heights. They even borrowed from the outside in the Roman Britain section – you could see them working on restoring part of the Roman London wall through the window.

Tasty salmon salad for lunch whilst surveying a wall of electronic tick a tape about London, eg number of annual tube journeys, number of sheets of toilet paper used daily by Londoners. Then obligatory visit to the shop – not possible to walk out empty-handed!

Then onto matinee performance of Les Miserables at the Queens Theatre Shaftesbury Avenue. We had bought the tickets on-line from Australia and had good seats in the Dress circle upstairs. Even after 25 years the musical is still pulling in the crowds. Full house. Consummate performance, very professional. I recognized lots of songs and many people were humming after the performance.

A walk through nearby China Town – couldn’t resist an early dinner at the Golden Pagoda with other like-minded people. Tasty meal of sweet and sour prawn wantons, pork dumplings, boiled rice, mixed vegetables and chui Sui (roasted pork) washed down with a pot of green tea – delicious!

Home with tired feet – reminder to self – never ever take boots or anything with a heel – only flat shoes allowed!

	Cosmetics found in grave site at Spittlesfields [Map]		Princess of the city – high class Roman woman foun [Map]
	Leadlined sarcophagus decorated with scallop shell [Map]		Museum of London [Map]
	Queen’s Theatre Shaftesbury Avenue [Map]		Excellent Chinese [Map]
	Inside Museum of London – one of many cafes – note [Map]