While in Sweden I made two trips out of the country. My first was to London. I went with Swedes and returned with Swedes, three days and nights with Spies travel agency. The airline was Premair. The airport in London was Stanstead. A bus took us to our hotel. I got British pounds at the foreign exchange (Forex).
Driving to our hotel on the left side of the road, we passed St. Paul's Cathedral. Our hotel was near two centers of activity: Piccadilly Circus (circle) and Trafalgar Square.
I began with Trafalgar Square. Nelson's column juts into the air, surrounded by four crouching lions. It was pigeons and people, black cabs and red double-decker buses. I saw Big Ben in the distance. I stayed away from Britain's center of government.
The National Gallery was behind Trafalgar Square. Art embodied history: Tintoretto and Renoir. The French were painters.
I knew what to see in the British Museum: antiquities! The Elgin marbles from the Greek Parthenon! These fragments were reproduced in Nashville. I saw the Rosetta Stone, that chunk of basalt used by Frenchman Champollion to decipher hieroglyphics.
I found exhibits dealing with the Viking era.
