Fauré and Leighton

We started the morning deciding to explore Portobello Road's antique shops.   It's a short walk from where we stayed.    The place was in its Friday state, not terribly crowded and not overwhelmed with street hawkers, but there are plenty of them.   Many of the antique shops appear to be shuttered compared to last time.   We enjoying moseying about and did purchase a small piece of silver plate, but it was more of a morning just browsing at the latest fashions both on Portobello Road and Westbourne Grove than much else.  A pleasant morning.   The food market looked good, too.

We lunched at Paul's on good sandwiches and good coffee.  Soon we will find out if the London loyalty card works in Washington.

In the afternoon, following on a piece from the NY Times, we went to the see the late 19th century home of the artist Frederic, Lord Leighton, a fashionable, rich, portraitist, probably gay, who lived in an encrusted Victorian place alone.  Much like Olana of Frederick Church, up the Hudson, the house is full of his interests in the Middle East, with magnificent tile work and an Arab domed room, but it's still a Victorian pile.    He was part of the Holland Park art group and a president of the Royal Academy of Art.   The art is very pre-Raphaelite.

On the way we passed through a neighborhood of very large, but very secure homes, with heavy police presence.  It appeared to be a street of embassy houses, but one had these two naked men over the portico.  Hmm.

We walked back through the park, stopping to watch a group of students with teacher study aerodynamics and fluid mechanics with missile water bombs.  

The evening started with a long bus ride, trapped in heavy traffic in Central London.   45 minutes to get from Oxford Circus to Shaftesbury Road (less than a mile).  But we made it to St Martin's in time for a light dinner and then the concert.

A magnificent presentation of Mozart, Vivaldi and Fauré.  The Requiem of course was the central piece.   The rumble of the organ, the excellence of the soloists and the fine orchestra, made it better than we have ever heard it.

And now this morning, Saturday, to the airport and home.