Friday, September 6, 2024 – Victoria and Albert Museum.

The British Museum is great but the Victoria and Albert Museum is every bit as good in its own way.

My favorite part of this museum was the Cast Courts.

This museum has great exhibits of original artwork and artifacts for the Middle Ages. The museum wanted to expand its collection and original art and artifacts were getting harder to find and it was getting harder to export these priceless treasures from their countries of origin. So, instead of obtaining the originals the Brits obtained plaster casts of the originals. Brilliant!

Trajan’s Column. The original is in Rome and commemorates Emperor Trajan’s military genius. The museum had to cut the plaster replica of this column in half to fit it into the space.

This is a full sized plaster replica of Michelangelo’s David.

Portico of Glory from the Cathedral at Santiago de Compostela.

This is the front door of the Cathedral at the end of my pilgrimage walks. A number of years ago the Cathedral in Santiago enclosed the front door and did a lot of restoration work on the Portico of Glory. In order to see it now you need to book a special tour. During this tour you are allowed to spend five minutes viewing this amazing masterpiece in dim lighting and there are no pictures allowed. I really enjoyed spending some time examining the details of this exhibit.

After we were done at the museum it was time for a little shopping.

What an iconic department store. We browsed but didn’t buy anything.

Sara wanted to take some tea home so after Harrods we had a quick lunch and went tea shopping at Twinnings Tea. After our expedition to Twinnings Tea we went back to the apartment for a little siesta. And then a glass of champagne before strolling over to the restaurant for dinner.