London has a Roman Amphitheater: a tour of Guildhall Art Gallery

The more I complete off of this 101 Free Things to do in London list, the more glad I am to have found it. There are so many things to do in London once you cross off all the popular sights! And better yet, I'm realizing how easy it would be to tailor a trip to any set of interests. Get off the beaten path!

I hadn't heard of the Guildhall Art Gallery, despite its rather royal ties (the Queen has her own bathroom off the main hall) and ancient history hidden in the basement. It showed up twice on the 101 List: my challenges (which I chose to accept) were to see a Rossetti painting and the ancient Roman amphitheater.

I happened to visit on a Saturday, when the gallery offers a few free introductory tours of the space. Suuuuuper handy as I wouldn't have realized the Rossetti painting is within ten steps of top of the main hall staircase. The guide also told the group why the painting is significant, and pointed out mistakes and factoids about it. I always feel I gain a lot from a tour, and the fact that it's free is a nice bonus.

Anyway, here's the Rossetti that I would have otherwise missed!

We also saw a property deed signed by Shakespeare, as well as one of the original copies of his complete printed works. 

Finally, the tour ended in the middle of what was once the Roman amphitheater in the city of Londinium, circa 70 A.D. I had no idea this even existed (and I'm a geek about ancient history)! The foundations of the main walls are still there, but the structure had long been demolished and covered by a couple thousand years of dirt and new buildings.

The story goes, when the city of London started excavations to rebuild to gallery in the early 90s, archaeologists realized they were literally in the center of the amphitheater, which they'd been trying to find for decades. So, because of its historical significance, the gallery had to completely scratch the original blueprints, and figure out a way to build around the ancient structure. So, in essence, there is a one-story slice of ancient earth preserved between the new floors of the Guildhall Art Gallery. They carved around it, even preserving the gravel and dirt! You can walk where gladiators and emperors entered the archway, and see how the Romans engineered underground water pumps to keep the ground from getting too swampy. Crazy!

A final neat touch is in the square out front of the gallery: the black stone line in this photo traces the outline of the original amphitheater. An homage to the structure and the history. I love stuff like that.

Also, this painting of Clytemnestra is intense! She just murdered Agamemnon and looks like she's ready to jump off the canvas to give stitches to snitches, so don't tell her I told you!

"Best cure for a headache? Decapitation." 

Setting records in Budapest

In Budapest we met up with one of my roommates from college, Rebecca. She's currently teaching English and Spanish in Hungary for the summer before returning to Spain to teach English in the fall. Tough life, eh? ;)

We got in after the seven-hour train ride from Munich. I don't want to sit on a trail for that long for a while. Austria was beautiful though, and I'm glad we got to see it instead of fly over it.

The trouble with getting in to a city on a Sunday at dusk is that it is generally deserted, nothing's open, and it tends to look creepier than it is. Sorry, Budapest, but you fall into that category.

On top of those factors, Budapest is also a gateway to eastern Europe which has a much different feel from western Europe. Many of these countries have been in serious trouble within the last two decades, and have been conquered or occupied for the majority of their histories. They've had bigger issues than making their city pretty for tourists.

The next morning the city looked much better. Rebecca met us at our hostel and we set out for the main square later than intended and needed to get a metro (subway/tram/bus) pass for the day. We went to the station and the line is of course 8-10 people deep. We are trying our luck with the timing. We get to the front, get a ticket, get down the escalators and the train is in the station! Run, run!

Becca and Britton make it on to a car and I'm bringing up the rear and realize the door behind them is closer, so I jump on, assuming the cars are all connected like on a train. Not so, and I can't get their attention. As the train pulls away, I see that Britton has gotten off the train and was left at the station!

Becca and I both poke our heads out at the next station to find each other and jump off hoping Britton got on the following train. Which he did! Hooray for establishing emergency plans ahead of time!

We somehow make it to the main square where our waking tour starts just as the guide is starting her history of Hungary spiel. And then we notice that it's hot! Definitely sticking to the shade as much as possible.

This tour covered the history of Hungary - of which there is a lot - and on the main touristy things: differences between Buda and Pest, the Chain bridge, parliament buildings, Margaret island, and others.

But throughout the tour, it just kept getting so hot! Turns out, as Becca informed us later, the temperature in Budapest that day set a record high for the city. The previous record was set in the 1930s. What a day to remember!

We got some dinner and sent Becca on her way "home" and then, we went and hung out on or hostel's couch. It was the first night when we just let ourselves be tired. Nothing was calling us back out to the streets of Budapest, nothing was on our agenda, and we had an early morning the next day. And I guess in the scheme of the 21 days we will have traveled, we can allow ourselves just one night in.

(photo of me in front of the Chain Bridge in Budapest)