We embarked upon our Grand Tour this week as only empty nesters can, carefree and with good walking shoes. In my mind, I’ve labeled this the Tour of a Lifetime and, since we are heading to Scandinavia, have dubbed it the Fish Slapping Tour. (See Monty Python). First Stop: London.
Third Time’s the Charm
The third time you visit a city, I am now convinced, is the best. The first time, you had to see all the touristy things because many of them are interesting even if touristy. The second time you brought the new spouse or friend or you saw two new things you couldn’t pack in the first time. The third time, though, you aren’t Obligated to do any of that. You also now have Your Favorite things to see again, and those things– those favorite restaurants and artworks and shops and short cuts to places– are old friends. Karin had a writers’ thing the first time in 2005 and then we brought the kids in 2006, and had to add Stonehenge and Westminster Abbey to the obligatory tours of the Tower of London and London Eye and British Museum. But theis time we didn’t need to do any of those; yet, we don’t live there so we felt free to wander and gawk and it was amazing. We decided to have no specific agenda aside from two unvisited museums and to go in search of statues. It turned out to be my favorite way to see a city.
The statue idea came about last fall when Karin happened upon an audio book series written by Charlie Fletcher, starting with the intriguing Stoneheart. Read by Jim Dale, the books are about two preteens George and Edie who slip into an UnLondon where the statues come to life. While the trilogy had familiar battles between light and dark, it didn’t have the overused wizardry that magic stories often do. Instead, George must battle and befriend statues both good and evil—spits and taints as the books label them—to keep the bad spirits within the stones from taking over London. Continue reading “Fish Slappin’: In Search of Statues”