Wednesday: Tour of Westminster Abbey

This was a wonderful pace. There was no photography in the main abbey/chapel area, but we were allowed to take pictures of the gardens, cloisters and auxillary rooms.
This was our entrance to the Abbey from the Cloisters:

Westminster Abbey cloisters.

All the black stones on the floor marked graves, some of the dates so worn they were unreadable, others from the 1600's and a few in the 21st century. All along the walls were memorials to individuals, important to the nation, world, or their families.

The ceiling, the fan vaults, were amazing.

Ceiling on the cloisters at Westminster Abbey

The Abbey was full of beautiful sculptures and stone work, and the ceilings were jaw dropping! I didn't know where to look first! After touring the Abbey, getting to see the tombs and memorials to so many famous and infamous historical figures, we went out to the gardens via this room:

Vaulted Ceiling

This large space was used first by the monks for administrative purposes, then the government began to use it as it was a neutral space, until they all moved across the square to Parliament House and know it is a space full of medieval paintings and tiles. The carpet covers the orginal tile flooring, very well preserved!
It was lightly sprinkling when we got to the gardens, but how beautiful they were!

After the visit to the Abbey I made my way to the National Gallery by myself. It is a wonderful site, I spent a couple hours in it and only got part way through the painting on the upper floor. I think there are also more on lower floors. Tim asked me to pick a couple of paintings to talk about on our visit there next week - since I'm an Art History major. I guess I'll find out if I actually retained anything from this past year!