Greetings from London! Anne and I arrived early this morning after a 7 hour transatlantic flight from Washington DC. Here I am standing outside of our hotel – the Lancaster Gate Hotel near Hyde Park. This is a good location, close to the major transit hubs.
After checking in to our hotel, we immediately started touring. Though tired from the long flight we wanted to adjust to the time change by staying awake. Our “hop on, hop off” original London tour company bus showed us around the town, with narration of the sights we saw.
The highlight of the day for me was a visit to St Paul’s cathedral in London. I had written a paper in college about the cathedral’s architect, Christopher Wren. Today I saw the inscription on Wren’s tomb in the cathedral written in Latin: “SUBTUS CONDITUR HUIUS ECCLESIÆ ET VRBIS CONDITOR CHRISTOPHORUS WREN, QUI VIXIT ANNOS ULTRA NONAGINTA, NON SIBI SED BONO PUBLICO. LECTOR SI MONUMENTUM REQUIRIS CIRCUMSPICE” Fortunately, I remembered back to that term paper written long ago and I recalled what this meant, “Here in its foundations lies the architect of this church and city, Christopher Wren, who lived beyond ninety years, not for his own profit but for the public good. Reader, if you seek his monument – look around you.”
I was amazed by the size of St Paul’s and learned it took 35 years to build.
On Thursday we will visit more famous sights in London. Tomorrow we are taking a road trip to visit Stonehenge.
