All the Hogarths in London with

All the Hogarths in London with Michael and Dan

Daniel Emberley February 2019

Our friend Wendy was working remotely from a house in London. She had three bedrooms and two baths that she graciously offered up to us, and we jumped on the offer. Our mutual friend Eleanor joined us for some of the week; together we had three different trips going on: work, family (Eleanor), and tourism. We hadn’t been in London since our honeymoon, and it is an entirely new city.

Tuesday, February 5

We flew British Airways, whose website is condescending and tricky, but whose staff were consistently pleasant and professional. Didn’t hurt that the flight was less than ¼ full, so we each got our own row.

Wednesday, February 6

Love Terminal 5 at Heathrow. Got in at 11AM, easy out and on the Tube to Holburn almost before we could find our Oyster cards. We were staying at 9 Hatton Place in Clerkenwell, due north of the City. It’s a funky lane off the Hatton Garden jewelry district. The jewelers are mass market, more Home Shopping Network than Cartier. Wendy met us there, it’s a house her friends Rob and Melissa rent out most of the year (if you want to book it https://www.booking.com/hotel/gb/hatton-place-london.html). Dropped our bags, had a cup of tea, then were off to keep ourselves distracted long enough to get on a normal sleep pattern.

Leather Lane is a street of food carts and takeaways parallel to Hatton Garden catering to office workers. Wendy recommended it for lunch; we found a branch of Pie Minister, our favorite pie shop from Manchester. Got beef-and-bacon and chicken Aragon pies, mushy peas, red cabbage, and cider. We walked west through Grey’s Gardens and Lincolns Inn to Sir John Soane’s Museum. One of our favorite museums, it’s an inspiration for how we’ve lived in our homes since seeing it in 1997. This time we noted how Soane pushed the façade forward a couple feet to bring in additional light, and built back into what had been utility yards behind his three townhouses. We spent time with the series “A Rake’s Progress”, the paintings that taught Michael he loved Hogarth.

South to Christopher Wren’s St. Clement Danes, the official church of the Royal Air Force and the first of several post-Great Fire churches we sought out. Through the London School of Economics, which has a lovely campus in a corner of the City. Giving up on Verizon ever delivering web service, we picked up a folding map of London at their bookstore which proved a lifesaver. Don’t depend on your phone for directions, it doesn’t seem to work unless you have a British phone; even people from the Continent were complaining.

We walked along the Embankment past Blackfriars and over the Millennium Bridge to Bankside and the Tate Modern. Herzog & de Meuron’s conversion of Giles Gilbert Scott’s power station is brilliant. It’s a jacked-up version of the Hirshhorn, designed for museum as a social venue more than for displaying, storing, and interpreting art. We passed through the massive Turbine Hall, underwhelmingly between installations, and took the lift up. Too few elevators for the number of people, the museum underestimated their popularity as a tourist attraction. The eighth-floor deck has a fantastic view over the London that has been built since the city agreed to allow skyscrapers. There’s lots of discussion of the “Manhattanization” of London, but it looked more like a wet Los Angeles to us, clusters of towers separated by acres of low-rise housing. We were amused at signs asking us to “respect the privacy of our neighbors”, who bought glass box condos across the street from a major landmark in the age of smart phones. Umm, sheiks and plutocrats, invest in some curtains. Lots of construction cranes, but also many buildings we could see right through with seemingly no one in residence. The museum has a great collection, and we liked how they dedicated entire rooms to a single artist. We were less pleased by how little of the vast space is used to display art, and how much is dedicated to restaurants, shops, and circulation. Were any of the crowd even looking at the pieces, much less learning from them, or were they just here to impress their girlfriends?

Interestingly, the Tube does not connect where we were with where we were staying. Perhaps a bus does the trick, but we were not comfortable enough with London Transport to brave one. Walked back across the river to Clerkenwell. Neighborhood restaurants were shutting down as commuters left the City, so we stopped by Marks & Spencers and Tesco for groceries and dinner.

Thursday, February 7

Just south of us off Chancery Lane is the London Silver Vaults. These are underground room-sized safes used by silver dealers, a combo secure warehouse and retail. They opened in 1885, have never been burgled, and even when the building above them was destroyed in the Blitz the stores here were safe. Too expensive for shopping (a silver lobster tureen was enticing, in a Nieman Marcus way, but we restrained ourselves). Very kind shopkeepers welcomed us even after we made it clear we were not their market. A few blocks over on the Strand is Twinings Tea Museum. Actually, just their landmark store, with a couple display cases in the back, but fun to shop through their widest selection of teas.

On the Thames near Temple Bar is Two Temple Place. This was William Waldorf Astor’s 1895 home; its a Fifth Avenue mansion dropped into London. Wood carving and stained glass especially nice in the grand staircase and library. Their annual exhibition this year was of John Ruskin; fun to see his journals, sketches, and art works he owned and sometimes commissioned. A few blocks upriver is Somerset House. Originally built as an office building, it’s in the form of a palace; when William Chambers designed it in 1776 that was the only paradigm architects had for where government work could be done. Kings College London runs an art school here, their exhibits and shop were cool. The Courtauld Gallery was closed, unfortunately, so we missed their collection of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist painting.

We wandered north through the funky retail of Covent Garden for our Inigo Jones fix, then Soho, where hundreds of red lanterns were strung overhead for Chinese New Year. Picked up Portuguese custard at a bakery specializing in nata, then through Theaterland. My sugars were crazy, over 500, which was not a number I thought my meter could register. We figured it was carryover from the time delay on my evening insulin schedule, but ate a carbo-free meal of salads at a Pizza Express.

The Building Centre, off Tottenham Court Road, has a model of London showing every building, with the ones from the last couple decades picked out in white. This is not as good as the ones in Chicago or Queens, unfortunately: the model is there, but it depends on computer interfaces less impressive than Google Maps. Around the corner is Heal’s, one of our favorite department stores, which has been selling furniture, lighting, and design since 1818. Even if you’re not interested in shipping a bed home it’s worth seeing what they are selling, how they are selling it, and their cool Art Deco premises. We got no revelations: we think that as design has become more international, what we see in Manhattan or Copenhagen or London is pretty much the same. Still, their in-house brand furniture has lovely clean lines and is beautifully crafted.

East through Bloomsbury we stopped by the Tavistock Hotel, where we had stayed as newlyweds in a room that looked like a dormitory. It seems to have gotten a renovation since then. Passed Brutalist Brunswick Centre, still ugly, but acclaimed as a place Modern-lovers want to live. The Foundling Museum was tricky to find, off Brunswick Square in the former grounds of the first orphanage in Britain. When it was established Handel donated music, and a host of artists their work. In a world without galleries, donating was a way to establish a reputation and help homeless children at the same time. The museum tells the story of parentless children in the 1700’s through today, how the Foundling Hospital cared for them, and the donations that made them famous. You can sit in a wingback chair and listen to selections of Baroque music, or view their six paintings by William Hogarth. For Christmas I had given Michael the gift of seeing every Hogarth painting in London, which is what brought us here. They have his portrait of Foundling founder Thomas Coram, his “March of the Guards to Finchley”, and a roomful of paintings showing the early life of Moses (the world’s most famous orphan!) that were so mediocre we did not realize they were Hogarth’s until we looked at a guide in the shop. Also lots of work by contemporary artists like Yinka Shonibare, well displayed among the Old Masters.

Around the corner is Horse Hospital, which was supposed to show the Contemporary Wardrobe Collection on the top floor. We rang the bell, but it turns out this is a theatrical costume house where you rent garments for your next film, not a place open to the public. Made sense, the rest of this interesting lane, Colonnade, was lined with other film production companies.

A quick stop at the house, dinner at a Korean restaurant on Shaftesbury Avenue, and met Wendy at the Gielgud Theatre. We were excited to see the new version of Stephen Sondheim’s “Company”, with the lead character switched out from male Bobby to female Bobbi. Little did we know that it was amateur night in the West End. The lead actress was replaced by her understudy. Then the orchestra started missing notes. And the set of neon squares stopped working properly, so “apartments” actors were entering and exiting did not align. And the understudy could not hit the final notes of any of her songs. Finally, after “You Could Drive a Person Crazy” (appropriately), Bobbi put her finger up, declared “I’m going to take a moment”, and exited stage right. Abandoning two actors on stage, clearly needing a cue. The curtain came down and a stage manager told us they would be back in ten minutes. Interesting. Then a more senior stage manager told us they were canceling tonight’s performance (a bit late, that), and we would be given refund information in the lobby. But first, Patti Lupone came out and sang us a song she had once performed when the set on “Sunset Boulevard” failed. Not her eleven o’clock number, “Here’s to the Ladies Who Lunch”, which is what we all had our asses in seats for. Fortunately, our tickets were refunded before we got home, so Patti Lupone sang for us for free. A lovely evening walk back to the house through Covent Garden and Bloomsbury, laughing about the experience.

Friday, February 8

I had been leading us on the “Dan Emberley Death March of London”; everything was just close enough to walk, but still a bit far. First thing this morning we hit a Boots so Michael could get Dr. Scholl’s for his feet.

Something I’d missed on previous London trips was fancy shopping. Not like I was going to have a Turnbull & Asser shirt custom made, but I wanted to see it done. Today we caught up with that. Took the Central Line to Oxford Circus, then walked up Regent Street to Liberty. This is the store that sold William Morris’ Arts and Crafts ideas to a mass market (in Italy, Art Nouveau is still called “Stile Liberte”). Better than I’d hoped. A fake Tudor exterior hides four floors of fabric, rugs, housewares, paper, and chocolate wrapped around two half-timbered courtyards. I considered investing in some meters of fabric, but was overwhelmed by the selection, and settled for gilded salad tongs. Down Carnaby Street, now an outside mall of the usual suspect stores, to Saville Row, where we got to see tailors in basement rooms cutting and sewing bespoke suits. The Burlington Arcade, 1819 predecessor of our shopping mall, is home to luxury brands, also the even fancier Royal Arcade. Impressive to see retail buildings keeping their rep two centuries after the Prince Regent walked their halls.

We ducked into Burlington House for an amazing vegetarian lunch. Visually stunning and flavorful, a torte of bread with vibrant layers of carrots, spinach, cheeses; egg salad; and a Bakewell tart for dessert. The Royal Academy of Art was showing Bill Viola’s videos inspired by themes from the Queen’s Michelangelo drawings. We had seen some of the Viola work at his retrospective at our Portrait Gallery last year, but the partnering with Michelangelo was a revelation. Should not have worked, but did. Michael even sat through the bloody video of a woman giving birth partnered with an old man dying, never thought he would be able to focus on so much lady parts.

Christopher Wren’s St. James Church Piccadilly was not far away. A piano concert was finishing up as we arrived, so we shopped the craft market outside the church and found a cool mini-kaleidoscope. The big deal here, besides Wren, is the altar by Grinling Gibbons. This is tour de force woodcarving; we’ve seen Gibbons’ work before, but this is one of his best. We had it to ourselves except for staff who couldn’t understand why we were there now that the piano was silent.

Took the Tube to Bank, in the City. Three post-Fire churches in a row, plus a Roman temple. St. Mary Woolnoth wasn’t on our agenda, but the Bank station is wicked confusing, and let us out below it. The church is a gem by Nicholas Hawksmoor, and better, had a café in the entry where folks helped us find the next church. The City is difficult to navigate even with a good map, which we lacked. Most of the churches have been wrapped in glass and steel towers that preserve the ancient street plan but contribute to disorientation. Fortunately, a gentleman knew St. Stephen Walbrook, and pointed us in the right direction. This was Christopher Wren’s own church, a beautiful cubic interior with post-Blitz altar by Henry Moore. They had a map of historic churches in the City that we nabbed and used for future excursions. PRINT a map of the City before you get to London, you’ll be glad you have it in your emergency stash.

Across the street from St. Stephen is the Bloomberg headquarters tower. When they were digging the foundation they found a temple to Mithras established by Roman soldiers under the Emperor Claudius. Michael Bloomberg created an art center in the lobby that preserves and interprets the ruins, and gives contemporary artists an opportunity to create work in conversation with them. Free, and amazing; elevator down to the temple level and you could be in Rome instead of London. Except the audio is narrated by Joanna Lumley. The best pile of abandoned rocks I never expected to see, with text and staff that help you understand what you are looking at. A quick dash under London Bridge to Wren’s St. Magnus Martyr. This is supposed to have a model of historic London Bridge, but we were late or they had closed early, so we did not get inside. I can’t blame them for closing, it was raining, cold, and miserable with early rush hour traffic. We headed uphill from the river to the Walkie Talkie.

The skyline of London erupted over the past two decades. Developers have plopped major skyscrapers over the City, along the Thames, and in the Docklands. Because the city had such a low profile before, architects seized the opportunity to create shapes that would have been wasteful, or just invisible, in denser places. Londoners have been giving nicknames to the buildings since Norman Foster’s 2003 “Gherkin”. The Walkie Talkie, at 20 Fenchurch Street, has a sky deck with free entry. I’d made reservations before we left the States; to our surprise even with those we had to join a queue around the periphery for security. That made it easy for Eleanor to find us; she shouted “Is it worth it?” from the sidewalk, to which I could only reply “I’m a stranger here myself.” Ten minutes of security theater, including having to open up our Liberty salad tongs, got us in an elevator to the Sky Garden. My answer to Eleanor should have been “yes”. Three levels of restaurants and lounges with amazing views, connected by well planted staircases like a hanging garden. We followed the crowd, nabbing a table for cocktails with a rainy vista. I’d timed our visit for sundown, and it was pretty seeing the sky fade through red to night. They could use more interpretation, Eleanor asked if I could see any landmarks, and I stared east trying to find Canada Wharf before realizing that duh, below us was the Tower of London. We descended to the street, where Eleanor caught the Tube to Ealing to meet her cousin Louise, and us to Ngon Ngon, an excellent Vietnamese restaurant off Clerkenwell.

Saturday, February 9

Eleanor showed us how to get to Farringdon Station, where we caught the Circle Line to the Churchill War Rooms in Westminster. These are the underground offices where Churchill waged war against the Nazis. It’s a little bit Pentagon, a little stiff upper lip, and very hagiographic. We enjoyed how the Imperial War Museum has used bureaucratic concrete offices to teach World War II and Winston Churchill’s biography. Totally worth the 18 pound admission price. Walking north along St. James Park we went around Admiralty Arch, saw the end of the Horseguard’s Parade ceremony, and dropped Eleanor at the Duke of York column so she could meet a cousin at Piccadilly. We checked out Trafalgar Square, which was breaking down a Chinese New Year celebration from the day before, and got lunch at the crypt café under St. Martin in the Field’s. Spent most of the afternoon at the National Gallery, where we took the traditional route from the fantastic Italian collections through British art from the 1700’s. Michael especially liked the Botticelli’s, and Dan the Venetians. Saw Hogarth’s “Marriage a la Mode” in the final galleries.

We walked through Soho, catching a lion dance in Chinatown (but no dancing pigs). Detoured through Neal’s Yard to see the famous cheese shop, where they display British cheeses from freshest to most aged, runny, and decrepit. Neal’s Yard has more cool retail than we anticipated, a funky corner of Seven Dials. We shopped our way north, eventually finding ourselves at the British Museum. This was not on our agenda, but we were here, it was free, and we had not seen it since Norman Foster roofed over the Great Hall. That room is amazing, even better than what he did at our Smithsonian American Art Museum. We ran through the Elgin Marbles and hit the gift shop.

Back at the house we started laundry and caught up with Eleanor and Wendy. Eleanor had located a fish and chips shop, Fryer’s Delight, founded 1958 and one of Joan River’s must-do’s in London. The food was excellent, well-made fries, lovely battered cod, mushy peas, pickled eggs and cucumbers. Our week’s ration of fried food, completely satisfying.

Sunday, February 10

Sunday is a great day to check out street markets in London. It was a little overcast, but the rain held off most of the morning. We rode the Tube from Farringdon to Liverpool Street Station, then a short walk to Petticoat Lane. Since you can walk to the new skyscrapers in the City, the East End has gone through rapid gentrification, but this market retained a bit of tawdriness that we liked. Stalls selling cheap clothes, but also the best inexpensive souvenirs we found, and the main street lined with fabric shops. Middlesex Street (the Victorians renamed Petticoat Lane, as they disliked its sexual connotations) heads north to Spitalfields, a proper covered Victorian market hall with more upscale retailers and trendy food carts. Lots of locally produced and imported crafts. The presentation was exceptional, especially at the food vendors. Christchurch Spitalfields is a 1720’s Hawksmoor with one of his distinctive spires, like a tower made from a Palladian window. North to Brick Lane, which in addition to the street market has a series of markets in converted buildings. More crafts, old records, books; Indian, Continental, and African restaurants, all along a street that still has its Bengali street signs but seems to be recently posh.

We circled back to Liverpool Street Station and caught the Tube to Covent Garden, where we met Wendy and Eleanor at Hawksmoor Seven Dials. We had eaten at Hawksmoor in Manchester, it is a high-end steak place that started in London. Their Sunday roast, a British tradition, was amazing: beef round, giant Yorkshire puddings, potatoes, parsnips, carrots, roast garlic, served by a professional and friendly Libyan-via-Ireland in an elegant former brewery.

After lunch we got on the Tube, the women east to the markets, and us west to Earl’s Court. I had a sense that Earl’s Court was nothing to write about, and it isn’t, just a convenient neighborhood that normal people might still be able to afford. The architecture and neighborhood improved as we walked north to Holland Park. Our goal was the Design Museum on Kensington High Street, which I was surprised to discover is in the former Commonwealth Institute. I had toured this in 1991; then it was a tired 1962 Modern building with exhibits from nations in the Commonwealth. It has been renovated into a well-functioning museum of international design. There has been criticism that the renovation destroyed the original structure, but enough remains that I recognized it, and the courtyards and dramatic stairs connecting them look fabulous and work well. Permanent collection does a great job introducing modern design; we liked seeing this from a European perspective. We skipped the exhibits on David Adjaye and Yesterday’s Home of the Future; we decided our time was worth more than the cost of admission.

We walked north on Kensington Palace Gardens. This is a private street along Kensington Gardens, with the palace on the east and embassies and mansions on the west. Like if Kalorama was run out along a street, with Wills and Kate on one side and where your landlord is the Crown. We caught the Tube from Queensway to Chancery and picked up Eleanor at the house. She had wanted to try Ngon Ngon, which we were happy to go back to for a second dinner.

Monday, February 11

Eleanor was heading back to the States, so we said goodbye and got ready for our suburban excursion. Wendy had recommended we take Bus 243 to Waterloo Station. I was skeptical, but she was totally right. Now that congestion pricing has been introduced, buses move easily through the city, and the 243 gave us direct access to a major train station that would have required a couple of Tube connections. Plus a top floor, above-the-driver view of London flying by. Brilliant. Waterloo Station itself is impressive, we had no trouble buying tickets and catching the Southwestern Railway to Strawberry Hill. Not sure if we were overexposed, or if we were just having trouble with the English language, but Michael heard the stop “Mortlake” as “foreplay”. I did no better, sitting later in a café I read the clothier’s sign “Stitch & Feather” as “Bitch & Leather”. Either would work, I suppose.

Strawberry Hill was the estate of Horace Walpole, son of Prime Minister Robert Walpole. Horace was a fashionable gay author and bon vivant of the 1700’s. He invented the idea of “styles” of architecture as something you could apply like paint to a room, home, or piece of furniture; Strawberry Hill was his version of Gothic. Honestly, Walpole’s greatest invention was probably himself; his home was a stage set people visited to see him perform. We had seen Walpole’s collections at Yale a few years back, and were interested to see them in situ.

The walk from the train station to the home is a pretty suburb, leading to St. Mary’s College, whose campus fills much of the estate’s former grounds. They’ve preserved Walpole’s folly as a working chapel. The home’s grounds are being restored, a nice small garden. Small is the operative word: Strawberry Hill is not a grand estate, more a suburban villa that Walpole experimented with. We ate in the café, then entered the house. I was surprised to see wallpaper attempting to create the Gothic interior the home is famous for: it was more like a Logan Circle renovation than an English country house. Several good examples of Gothic Revival furniture and interiors, most using papier mache to evoke stone or wooden tracery. Lots of stained glass installed like souvenirs from trips to actual Gothic churches and buildings, and minor works of British painting and engraving. The Grand Gallery, Walpole’s masterpiece, is a breathtaking confection of fan vaulting, trellis work over mirrors, and color.

What redeemed this visit was the Thames Path. The river is lined with public walkways for most of its length from Oxford; this section through Twickenham is especially beautiful. We hiked north, under arching trees next to grassy banks and working boat yards. Each corner would show a villa or mansion; we passed Orleans House, where Louis Phillipe spent his exile from Napoleon, and Marble Hill House, where Kings George II and George IV installed their mistresses. These were interspersed with more prosaic sites; Eel Pie Island, where the Rolling Stones performed, and the site of a refugee Belgian community during World War I (“paging Mr. Hercule Poirot!”). Lots of houseboats, and water birds that we had never seen. The ferry we had hoped to take to National Trust administered Ham House would not be in operation until March, but we were happy to keep on north to Richmond, where there is a bridge. The town of Richmond is a pretty and posh suburb, we took a tea break, then traipsed through the buildings that remained from Henry VIII and Elizabeth I’s Richmond Palace. Most of this can be seen as ruins in the town park, but the former King’s wardrobe and other wings have been preserved and are rented out by the Crown Estates.

We picked up the District Line of the Tube and headed in to South Kensington. A short walk up Brompton Road got us to Harrod’s, where we enjoyed shopping for toys, sweets, kitchen goods, books, and the Egyptian Hall escalators and the Food Halls. The latter sold more prepared foods and fewer groceries than we remember, but the fancy tile walls and floors remain. We got the Tube from Knightsbridge to Holburn and changed to get off at Chancery. I was on a Gregg’s jones; Gregg’s is a savory bakery from the Midlands that makes the best sausage rolls. We got into their Leather Lane store just before closing and purchased meat pies and treats for dinner.

Tuesday, February 12

Clerkenwell is named after the Clerk’s Well, which once provided water to a monastery here. We stopped by the well, in the entryway of an office building on Farringdon Lane. We passed through Smithfield Market, an active meat market, and by the memorial to Wat Tyler’s Peasant Revolt to get to St. Bart’s Hospital. This was shut down by Henry VIII during the Dissolution, but he was forced to reopen it as the hospital proved too important to the health of the city. It was one of the few places in London where the monks’ churches were preserved. St. Bart’s the Greater charges for entry, so we just checked out the medieval exterior, but St. Bart’s the Lesser is a small church that welcomes all. The Hospital Museum has a collection of odd medical displays, but if you pass those galleries you come to a staircase with two large Hogarth paintings, The Good Samaritan and Jesus at the Pool of Bethesda.

We got on the Tube at St. Paul’s to South Kensington for the Victoria & Albert Museum. This is another favorite place, excellent collections from China, Japan, and India, massive galleries of glass, ironwork, silver, architecture, and pottery, murals by Frederick Leighton, fashion collections, and galleries of casts of the best European sculpture. Our favorite part is the William Morris decorated cafeteria, where we got lunch of pork chops, tortellini with mushrooms, carrot salad, potatoes dauphinoise, and a chocolate orange cake.

From the corner of the V&A we caught the 74 bus to Portmann Square in Marylebone, almost a direct run to the Wallace Collection. I had never been here, I think I confused it with Courtauld. It is nothing like it. The former mansion of the Marquesses of Hertford is packed with French decorative arts, paintings by Fragonard and Boucher, Rembrandt and Rubens, armor, Franz Hals “Laughing Cavalier”, Sully’s “Queen Victoria”. An entire Baroque wrought iron staircase from the National Bank of France. My favorite part was three paintings of the same sitter, Mrs. Perdita Robinson, by Gainsborough, Reynolds, and Romney. It is like the Frick Museum with twice the masterpieces in a better setting. Tea is served in the former courtyard, where we got cream teas to recover our stamina.

Selfridges is a short walk away; we knew the name, but had never been inside. It is the most luxurious department store we saw. They had the best designed souvenirs of anywhere on this trip; Michael greeted the collection of London coffee mugs with “at last, something worth taking home”. We shopped our way down Oxford Street, and when we got to Oxford Circus felt adventurous enough to hunt down the stop for the 55 bus, which took us east to Hatton Garden. We got dinner at an Indian restaurant, New Delis: we’d been having a hard time finding Indian food, to our surprise; this was delicious, a mixed grill, chicken korma, and broccoli paneer.

Wednesday, February 13

I was nervous about having to change Tube lines during rush hour with our bags, so we got an early start. Said thank you and goodbye to Wendy, hoofed it down to Chancery, changed at Holburn for the Piccadilly Line, and were at Heathrow Terminal 5 an hour later. Michael sold his Oyster card back to Transport for London, which you can easily do at a terminal in the station. Plenty of time to shop, rest up at our gate, and board our British Airways flight back to Dulles. We watched movies most of the flight, but had a great view over Labrador, dramatic snow-covered tundra that I hope I never see at ground level. An uneventful landing and passage through customs, and since it was rush hour hopped on the bus to Wiehle and rode the Silver Line home to Farragut West station.

What did we miss that we’d like to catch on a future visit?