I'm back from Turkey! I had a marvelous time- saw some cool things, ate some delicious food (and ironically, had no stomach issues whatsoever. Then I flew back to London and got royally sick from a Marks & Spencer sandwich. Go figure.), hung out with awesome people, and managed to more or less successfully navigate Istanbul & public transportation. I'll put up some pictures on flickr later tonight (I should really just cave and spend the $25) but I've still got much to say about London before Istanbul posts go up.
So welcome to Trafalgar Square! According to Wikipedia, Trafalgar is the 4th most popular tourist site in the world (which seems strange to me, since it is basically just a big open plaza, but hey). It is a great place to hang out, eat a sandwich & have a coffee- there's at least two coffee shops right there, including my favorite, Cafe Nero, similar prices as Starbucks but they give you a free drink after you buy 8 AND they have amazing hot chocolate- and watch the people passing by. It is also home to all kinds of gatherings. Every Christmas they put a big tree up here, and the day I left there was actually a big music/party thing scheduled for that evening in the Square and I was kind of sad to miss it. The other girls from the hostel said it was a rocking good time.
The square is named after the 1805 Battle of Trafalgar, a stunning British naval victory during the Napoleonic Wars. The British navy ships were under the command of Admiral Lord Nelson, and his column dominates the square.
If you look closely in all of these photos, you may notice that something is missing. Where are all the pigeons??? Well, THIS might have something to do with it...
That would be a man with a falcon on his arm. He walks around the square every day, serving as pigeon repellent. And it works too! Genius. So now let's talk about what is around the square.
The National Gallery dominates one side of the square. It's a really nice museum (and, bonus, totally free!). I'm one of those people that tends to get bored in art museums pretty quickly (I know, I'm a terrible person), but I do make an effort to get in to see the Impressionists, as per my aforementioned love of Monet. And Renoir. And Pissaro. And Sisley. I'll stop now. So I bopped in to check it out, skipping over all the boring old black-background portraits and went straight for the pretties. And then I admired some other works on the way out. Fun story, the state of Virginia donated a statue of good ole George Washington to the museum. He's standing out in front of the museum, on soil imported from the States because he had vowed during his lifetime that he would never set foot on British soil ever again. I'm kind of glad they thought to honor that; it makes for a nice little fun fact.
Next to the Gallery is the church of St Martin-in-the-Fields, so named because it was once literally in the fields, in sort of an empty zone between London and Westminster. Excavations found a Roman burial on the site, which has led scholars to question the significance of Westminster during Roman times because the site is so far outside of the limits of London. While Roman cemeteries were always located outside the walls of the city, this is farther than most. By the thirteenth century, there was definitely a church at the site because the abbot of Westminster and the Bishop of London had a little power struggle over it (Westminster won). During the sixteenth century, Henry VIII had the church rebuilt so that plague victims from the area could be handled there without having to go through Whitehall. The current church was constructed in the early 1700s, and inspired a whole slew of churches to copy its architecture, especially in the original 13 colonies. So if it looks like an old church you've seen in the Northeast, that's why. St Martin's is also the parish church of the royal family. Speaking of...
Another side of the square features Admiralty Arch, a gateway to the Mall, the road which connects Trafalgar to Buckingham Palace. If you walk through these gates all the way down, you'll come out at the Victoria Monument, which I showed you in the Buckingham Palace post. Trafalgar is also quite near Leicester Square (just walk around the back of the National Gallery), where the Tkts booth is; here you can buy CHEAP tickets for certain West End shows the day of. They don't have much in the way of brand new shows (sadly, no Love Never Dies. I MUST see that before I leave.), but they have some great deals on long-running favorites like Phantom and Lion King. West End in general is fantastic- they get the same quality shows as Broadway, get some big name stars, and tickets usually cost about half of what they would in the States. Good stuff. So there you have Trafalgar Square. Still to come: St Paul's Cathedral, Westminster Abbey-Parliament-Whitehall, and the Tower of London and then I think we'll be set to move on to Istanbul!
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