July 26: The World's Largest Ceiling Mural

Today, finally, was the day to pick up my visa for returning to Canada.  The visa place has regular appointments all day, but you can only pick up papers between 4 and 5.  I know that now and I realise it was in the small print of the e-mail I got.  But this morning I didn't know that and so I took a tube ride and showed up bright and early and got turned away and told to come back at 4.  Sigh....  This whole thing just keeps getting better.

After that disappointment I decided to go see the Banqueting House.  On my way I walked through one of the many pretty parks that are sprinkled throughout London, even the busy areas downtown:

Near there, I got the best view of the "London Eye" that I've had so far:

I've seen it peeking over things from lots of other spots, but this was the first time I have seen the entire circle.  It's interesting....  I have not been even tempted to ride it.  It's expensive and I don't like heights and I've had lots of good views of London from the ground.

The Banqueting House is all that's left of the famous Whitehall Palace, used by monarchs from Henry VIII through Charles I.  It's one of several properties Henry VIII acquired from Cardinal Wolsey when the latter went out of royal favor by not managing to get Henry a divorce. The British parliament and many other government buildings are nearby, which is why the whole area is referred to as Whitehall, and that name is sometimes used to refer to the British Government -- the way people sometimes refer to the President of the United States or the whole U.S. government as "the White House".  Most of Whitehall Palace was destroyed by a fire in 1698, but they made a priority of saving the Banqueting House.  Judging by today, this is a place that's not as popular with tourists as many of the other places I've been, but it's really worth a visit and I'm glad I went.

The building was designed by the famous architect Inigo Jones and its most prominent feature is its huge ceiling mural, done by Rubens.  Today the word "banqueting" suggests large sit-down dinners, but a "banquet" in those days was more of a post-dinner gathering with small fancy snacks and desserts and lavish entertainment, including the "masques" which were very popular at the time.  The building was also used for official events such as receiving foreign dignitaries.

The main part of the building is one enormous room.  It is a lovely room by itself, with nice proportions and pretty columns.  But what really hits you when you enter is that ceiling.  It is divided into 9 panels, each one of them quite huge.  It's pretty old-fashioned, with lots of fat cherubs and illustrations affirming the divine right of kings, but it's still quite striking.  It was impossible to take a picture that captured the feel of the whole ceiling, but here is my photo of one of the panels:

It's basically showing James I being taken up to heaven and congratulated for being such a wonderful king.  For a better idea of what the room and ceiling look like, you can try the official web site: http://www.hrp.org.uk/banqueting-house.

Admission included an audio guide which gave a history of the building and explained the ceiling piece by piece.  If you look around the room it's really quite comical: a fairly empty room with people wandering around looking up up instead of at where they are walking.  Scattered around the room are big beanbag chairs, where people can lie back and look up at that ceiling.

There are also a few "mirror tables" to help you see the ceiling.

Still, I think most people probably leave the room with a stiff neck, like I did -- and it was worth it!

There was also a small table in one corner of the room with a lady sitting by it and talking with people.  I wandered over to see what it was about and she had some artifacts from the original Whitehall Palace, dug up at various times after the fire.  She let us sit down with her one at a time and handle some of the things after we put on white cotton gloves.  There was a tile from a bath probably built for Henry VIII and a coin from the reign of Charles I.  Very interesting.

There's some real irony in the history of this building.  It was built for James I and his son, Charles I, commissioned the ceiling with is message about the divine rights of kings.  And the room was one of the last things Charles I saw as he was marched to his execution.  The scaffold was built outside a window in a part of the building that has been remodeled.  There is a large portrait of the king there to commemorate the event:

Quite a place with quite a history! In addition to being open to tourists, the Banquet Hall is often rented out for private use.  If you've got the money, you can "hire" it for a wedding, dinner, conference, fashion show,  etc.  It's also still used for occasional royal functions.

When I was done with the Banquet Hall I wandered around the Whitehall area and passed this interesting street name:

I ended up at Trafalgar Square, a place I remembered from my first trip to England.  It's a large, busy place, always full of tourists and locals.  It's bordered part of the way around by museums and is dominated by this high-up statue of Admiral Nelson (the victor of the Battle of Trafalgar):

The square also contains many other statues of heroic figures, like these:

And the large central fountain, surrounded by huge stone lions which every child who visits the square just has to climb:

And, um, whatever this is:

I bought a take-out lunch and sat down in the square to eat it.  It's a very nice place for lunch and people-watching.

And after I ate, I just had to take a picture of the place where I bought my lunch:

This chain has stores all over the U.K., at least every place I have visited during this trip, and it's wonderful.  It's actually nutritious fast food at a reasonable price by British standards.  It's easy to find a sandwich, but after a while I started craving fruit and vegetables and this place sells very nice packaged salads as well as very good sandwiches.  You can even pick up an apple or a small container of other kinds of fruit for dessert.  I have enjoyed a lot of "Pret a Manger" lunches and dinners during this trip and I wish they would expand into Canada.  To give you an idea of how popular it seems to be, this is just one of two "Pret a Manger" stores visible from Trafalgar Square!

And across the street from Trafalgar Square in a different direction is Canada House:

It's like an embassy, but since Canada is a member of the Commonwealth it's called a High Commission instead.

And finally it was time to get back on the tube and head back to the visa office where they returned my passport with a return visa glued into it.  I guess that's why they had to take my passport, but a warning would have been nice -- or a visa that they could have glued in on the spot when I came to pick it up....  At least now it's all done and I'm absolutely sure I can get back home.  Whew!