Oxford and London

We took the Eurostar from Paris to London between X-Mas and New Years Eve: so convenient and easy! Arriving at the beautiful and quite new St-Pancreas station (with its champagne bar: not to be missed). Next train from Paddington station to Oxford, covered in snow, where we took refuge from the cold in St Mary's church in the heart of the historic part of town.

 
Then we continued to the newly renovated Ashmolean Museum: three levles of objects from all over the world, well lit and handsomly presented:

 London was as foggy as it should but not too cold, well decorated for the holidays. There we visited one of the world's largest private galleries, the Saatchi gallery:

 

Victoria and Albert had a wonderful exhibition of Diaghilev and the golden age of the Ballets Russes 1909-1929, of Imperial Chinese robes and of photography. At the Royal Academy of Arts we saw the Glasgow Boys: pioneering painters 1880-1900: wonderful oils and watercolours. Not to be missed if you travel to London. Tea at Savoy was impossible: you have to book three months in advance! But we got tickets next door to the very funny Oscar Wilde play "An ideal husband". Quite exhausted by then, I dragged the boys to see the British Museum. We concentrated on the Greek objects that might, in parts, have to be given back to its original country:

Before leaving the "island" and heading back to Paris, we all needed to drink a beer at a typical English pub: