Day 18: Sep. 21, 2018 - St. Paul’s & Shakespeare at the Globe!

We rise to another beautiful day. We have two destinations for today: St. Paul’s Cathedral and the re-creation of Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre near the Southwark Bridge. We meet most of the family at the underground station (Eliot has been to St Paul’s on an earlier trip and will meet us later at the Globe). We enter and head for the church.

The interior to the church is as grand and vast as I remember it. We take a hasty tour of the first floor, stopping to admire the Wellington Memorial. Both Wellington and Nelson are buried here. Dan Brown must love this place, there are Christian and British symbols everywhere.

We head for the stairs to experience the whispering walls inside the dome. Once there (after 378 steps), we test the acoustics. We never quite hear one another, as other people are talking at the same time. We do, however, clearly hear the steward who is monitoring the dome’s interior space.

We head upstairs again to get to the top of the dome, the Golden Gallery, another 150 steps. We will climb hundreds of stairs today (my fitbit later says 42 floors worth). Much of the climb is in very small, tight interior spaces. We arrive at the top and are rewarded with great views.

The City from the Top of St. Paul's

The Thames and the Shard from St. Paul's

We descend, returning to the main floor. We exit and head across the Thames via the Millenium Bridge in search of lunch. Kevin, Sarah and Hunter want to visit the Borough Market, so we part ways, giving them their theatre tickets.

Amy and I patronize the Swan at the Globe for a traditional British Lunch:

Lunch at the Swan

We have a tasty and relaxed meal, Amy has a chicken and mushroom pie while I have the fish & chips. We are enjoying all the sitting we are doing. It might have been a mistake to climb all those stairs in St. Paul’s on the day we are seeing a Shakespeare Play from the Yard (the standing room area in front of the stage)!

As 2:00 approaches, we wonder when we should give up our comfortable seats and enter the Theater. We finally give in at 10 minutes until.

The interior of the Globe is beautiful.

Interesting note: the Globe scenes of the movie Shakespeare in Love were filmed here.

As the clock ticks toward 2:00, trumpeters announce the start of the play. We are subsequently held in rapture as the fine cast, led by Mark Rylance as Iago and Andre Holland as Othello, give an outstanding performance of this tragedy. I can tell that we are rapt because rain falls for some of the time but we hardly notice. More than other performances of this play that I have seen (most recently at Seattle Shakes in the Cornish Theatre, 2017?), I get an intense feeling of the great despair that Othello feels as he strangles Desdemona.

Drained (well, I am; I’m not sure about the others in our group), we exit the theatre in search of a place to sit and recover. We look for the Oxo Tower, but before locating it, we find Doggett’s Coat & Badge, next to the Blackfriars Bridge over the Thames. We enjoy a baked Camembert and bend the elbow a bit, discussing the play and enjoying the moment and the company.

We eventually discuss the rest of the evening (dinner) and wonder whether the Oxo Tower has available seating. After finishing our drinks, we wander towards it and discover that they have room for us! This is a wonderful surprise. The tour books are correct; the views are spectacular. We enjoy cocktails while the sun is setting. As our food begins to arrive, a pair of musicians arrive at the piano next to our table and he starts playing the guitar while she starts singing. Their repertoire is pop songs of the last 30 years or so. The have talent! The music is really wonderful, as is the food.

We really lucked out wandering in here. The restaurant is a little noisy, but it is lively. Everyone has a great time. After dinner, we head back to the flat. This has been a really special day.