Why Visit National Libraries Worldwide?

 

UK

The British National library is the largest in the world, was recently, in the last decade, moved and rebuilt, and has won awards. It has remarkable spaces iside for eents as well as some interesting statues. The library is conveniently placed opposite Baker Street station (underground and overground railway) and Madame Tussauds waxworks, and around the corner from the Sherlock Holmes museum and shop.

The library has two notable statues. One is outside. It depicts a person sitting.

The other statue is inside. It shows a giant book.

When you are travelling, as well as taking a good book to pass the time whilst on your train or plane, or waiting, you might visit a national library.

The Bitish library is the largest in the world. 

South America - Brazil

The largest in South America is the National Library in Brazil.

Asia - Singapore

Singapore National library frequently has events for authors and readers and members of the public. I have been to book launches, accompanies by exhibitions on the ground floor. I have also attended a two session class on illustrating books and greeting cards for birthdays, weddings and festivals such as Xmas, Diwali and Eid.

Useful Websites

https://www.bl.uk/

https://www.bl.uk/plr

The library is conveniently placed opposite Baker Street station (underground and overground railway) and Madame Tussauds waxworks, and around the corner from the Sherlock Holmes museum and shop.

The library has two notable statues. One is outside. It depicts a person sitting.

The other statue is inside. It shows a giant book.

When you are travelling, as well as taking a good book to pass the time whilst on your train or plane, or waiting, you might visit a national library.

The Bitish library is the largest in the world. 

The largest in South America is the National Library in Brazil.

Singapore National library frequently has events for authors and readers and members of the public. I have been to book launches, accompanies by exhibitions on the ground floor. I have also attended a two session class on illustrating books and greeting cards for birthdays, weddings and festivals such as Xmas, Diwali and Eid.

Useful Websites

https://www.bl.uk/

https://www.bl.uk/plr

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UK Roman and Greek Statues and Sites: Caractacus, Londoninium and Hadrian

Problem
Where can I visit Roman sites?

Answers:
Roman sites to see:

If you are starting in London, England. look no further. It was called Londinium.

Story
You will notice that I specify London, England. That is because when I left the USA to live in London, England, several people wrote to me in London, without adding England to the address on the envelope, and my letters arrived months later via London, Canada, with envelopes with hand written notes, Not Known Here, Try London, England.

I also check the statistics of my readership every day, in fact several times a day, sometimes several times an hour. Often I have a large number of readers in the USA and Canada.

UK
London Wall, London.
London Museum, London. (Go to the Barbican or Moorgate tube station to see the London Museum. Best travel by London's underground train service. See Google maps.)

British Museum, London. (You may find long queues on busy days in high season if there's an exhibition. Check the situation on queues and prices and combined tickets before setting off.)

Up north
Hadrian's Wall. Several sites along the border of England and Scotland, such as Vindolanda which has a good museum. Best travel by car, unless you are a keen hiker and walker. The thing I remember most from Vindolanda was buying a postcard showing the Romans all sitting over holes in one long toilet seat.

Caractacus
A favourite song which I hear when I go to Swanwick Writers Summer School, is about Caractacus. (I remember the chorus and endless repetitions of "just walking by"). I had never thought about whether he was Greek or Roman or British or mythological or a real person or when he lived.

I was amazed, amused and delighted to find a link to an article in the Independent revealing to me that Caractacus and his entourage were involved in the Roman conquest of Britain, basically involving a British lady who decided to switch sides and join the Romans.

WALES
Roman Museum at Caerleon. (Nearest big city, Newport.) Not far across the bridge from England to Wales. Toll on bridge one way, paid going into Wales. Take the toll receipt and check the back of the receipt for discount offers on local attractions and/or food and drink.

The Roman museum at Caerleon is my all time favourite. (Jointly with Vindolanda.) The things I remember is that excavators found rings, coins and other items dropped into the toilet system. I can imagine the person who lost the item wondering where it had gone. (I feel the urge to write a short story set in Roman times, about somebody who drops a ring down the toilet system, accuses a friend or enemy of stealing it, kills them, goes on the run. Years later their descendant is an archaeologist who finds it. I wonder if I could tell it from the ring's point of view, or the point of view of two matching rings.)

Tips
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/archaeology/royal-sex-scandal-roman-empire-yorkshire-discovery-a7671171.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Britain

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.

Fireworks Festivals, Fun Dates, Chocolate Museums And Hokusai Art Exhibition For 2017

Problem
Where shall we go to watch fireworks and when shall we go?
If not, where can we watch?

Answer
New Year's Eve worldwide. Especially first down under in Sydney, Australia, or London, England, or Edinburgh, Scotland. If not on TV.

Festivals around the year are listed here.
http://www.pokies.net.au/fireworks/

Other Events include
British Museum exhibition of Japanese artist Hokusai who painted The Great Wave. When I visited Japan I bought a set of little prints like a pack of playing cards of Hokusai paintings. He is a classic artists. He lived in the late 1700s and early 1800s.

This exhibition shows pictures from Japan and the USA, from the artist's later period. None of his other paintings appeal to me as much as The Great Wave. It is menacing yet beautiful, rather like a snow-capped mountain, or a fall of rain, or a curve, or a flight of birds. Yes, you can see Mount Fuji beyond the wave. It is part of a set of pictures of the mountain. I can show it to you on this internet site because the picture from Wikipedia is in the public domain.

Do read about Hokusai in Wikipedia. He is Japan's most famous artist, and a point of discussion if you meet somebody from Japan or London this year, or anybody studying or practising art. His life sheds interesting light on Japanese customs. He changed his name many times, which was common practice for artists in his day.

The exhibition takes place May 25 - July 2 and July 7- Aug 13. The exhibition closes in the middle to change the works shown to protect them from damage (from day light). So if you are in London, England, you can see it if you are free from May 25, also in June, July, (not July 3-6) or in August before August 13, when unluckily it's the last day, your last chance to see it.

Hokusai Beyond The Great Wave
The British Museum
London
England

Booking
Adult tickets cost £12 and there are reductions for students and others. If you have already joined or wish to join the Friends at about £42 per person you get free entry to the exhibition.
http://www.britishmuseumshoponline.org/exhibition-tickets/hokusai-beyond-the-great-wave/invt/mexhokusai?_ga=1.4192496.1730437856.1484159490#book-now

My last new year wish is to add another museum to my travel plans.
The Chocolate Museum
Brixton
London
Tel:
http://www.thechocolatemuseum.co.uk/collection

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer,a author and speaker. See my other posts on this blog, my other blogs on blogger.com on subjects such as spelling and grammar and public speaking; see my profiles and posts on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram and videos of me talking about etiquette and spelling and reading my comic poetry on YouTube. You can also take a peek at my books on Amazon.com and Lulu.com and buy them pristine new new or bargain price second hand. If you meet me, naturally I can sign books for you and write you an amusing message, maybe a rhyming couplet. Please share my posts.

Cats: sitters, Christmas stockings, statues, cat museums to see on holiday

CAT MONUMENTS and MUSEUMS

Cat monuments and museums to visit on your travels include:

1 Cat statue, Christmas Pantomime and Film
Dick Whittington's cat, London, England.
Children in England learn the memorable phrase: Turn again, Whittington, Lord Mayor of London.
Dick Whittington was a real person. This model shows his cat. The cat statue was placed on Highgate Hill under a cage to protect it (from accidental traffic damage or vandalism).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Whittington_and_His_Cat

The story of Dick Whittington is popular for pantomime's in London, before Christmas every year during the holidays for families, especially with younger children. It has also been made into a TV film starring well known actors and comedians such as Harry Hill. You can see it on YouTube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9F87IvUBShY

2 Cat Statue
Cat accompanying Captain Matthew Flinders, map-maker in Australia, shown in statue on Euston station, London, England.

Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

Cat Museum
The cat museum is in Kuching, Malaysia, and the word Kuching is Malay for cat. I saw lots of stories about cats from all over the world. Anne Frank had a cat. Other celebrated cats have belonged to leaders in the USA and UK and elsewhere.
http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Attraction_Review-g298309-d447294-Reviews-Cat_Museum-Kuching_Sarawak.html

Cat Gifts
Looking at cat stocking images, I found presents for female cat owners include black stockings with cat tops, faces and two little ears sticking up.

You can buy a cat ring holder. The Lakeland catalogue says the little cat will be 'perfectly' happy to mind your rings. It costs £7.95. Ref 42832. Page 118 of their catalogue
Tel 015394 88100
lakeland.co.uk

Red Xmas stockings for cats included the shape of a red fish with a ribbon hanging loop.


Cat Christmas stockings are sold by Waitrose supermarket.
Here's one I photographed in South Harrow, NW London, England.

Cat puppets and soft toys are sold in supermarkets, especially at Xmas time.

Catteries
UK boarding catteries (as opposed to breeding catteries) are inspected and licensed. and should display their license.

http://www.maxkitty-petsitting.co.uk/sem_cat_v2.html?gclid=CjwKEAiA7f-yBRDAgdv4jZ-78TwSJAA_WdMalq8zoEHzGixNYopmBPzPTCYojfJX-LbreHFoDL-wJxoCBazw_wcB

Cat Statues and souvenirs
The British Museum in London has statutes of cats from Egypt in the collection and in the shop and the online shop.
http://www.britishmuseumshoponline.org/sculpture/gayer-anderson-cat/invt/cmcr90740

Museums in London and New York
British Museum, London, England
For pictures of British Museum cats including a mummified cat and a beautiful finger ring with a cat on top go to:
http://www.littlehouseofcats.com/cats-in-art/museum-cats/british-museum-cats/

Met Museum, New York, USA
To see a picture of the cat statue which was intended to contain a mummified cat go to the website of Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Details of entry times on the Museum home page.
http://www.metmuseum.org/collection/the-collection-online/search/544118
If you know of any more, please tell me. Please follow me for more interesting stories on travel, like my Facebook page, or link to me on LinkedIn. Details of my books and profile are on Lulu.com and Amazon.

Cat Collection in Amsterdam
Are you going to Europe? Look for this cat theme Cat Cabinet in Amsterdam in the Netherlands.
http://www.amsterdam.info/museums/cat-cabinet/


Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author of Larry The Talking Labrador. See my books on Amazon.com and Lulu.com

Free comic creators' day at Cartoon Museum, London

Free comic creators' day at Cartoon Museum London, near the British Museum.

Blue Plaques of London - an entertainment and education

Walking around London you constantly pass blue plaques honouring people you have half heard of. What a delight. I take photos and look them up when I get home. I recently walked from Holborn station towards the British Museum and the Cartoon Museum. I passed several blue plaques.

Here's a blue plaque put up by Greater London Council to Randolph Caldecott 1846-1886. Poor man, in the sense of unfortunately, not in terms of fame and income but in terms of health and longevity. He was a talented and successful book illustrator, one of thirteen children, in poor health, and died in his forties. You can see his illustrations in Wikipedia, an account taken from the early version of Britannica which is in public domain. For example, he illustrated The dish ran away with the spoon, and The house that Jack built. 

I have missed my chance to be one of those who developed early and fizzled out. Some people achieve success when they are young and die young. They seem to be racing against time. We are all racing against time. I am more of a late developer, ready to develop my talents and be discover late, like Grandma Moses. Which sort are you, early developer or late developer.

I was on my way to the Cartoon Museum, to see even more famous book illustrators, such as T e n i e l who illustrated Alice in Wonderland.

Angela Lansbury, author and illustrator, travel writer and photographer, speaker.

New Noah's Ark to visit in the Netherlands, and taste Noah's pudding in Turkey

All About Noah's Ark
Noah's Ark was described in the Middle East in biblical and pre-biblical times, built before the great flood, survived the rising waters and supposedly sailed off and landed safely in Turkey where you can find its reputed remains - and disputed remains. You can take a tour to Noah's mausoleum, and eat Noah's dish - but now western Europe has a large reproduction of Noah's ark as a tourist attraction in the Netherlands.

Babylonian Text And Reconstruction
Earlier in 2014 I saw a Channel 4 TV film about the reconstruction of Noah's Ark based on the dimensions found in a pre-biblical Babylonian script taken to Babylonian text expert Finkel at the British Museum in London. Finkel was so excited to have detailed dimenions and instructions, that he went off to find somebody to build the huge boat and make it ship-shape, completely round, and seaworthy.  Welsh coracles and Indian fishing boats are also this shape, resembling a donut or bagel, which seems odd to those of us used to modern bullet-shape boats which fly through water like pointed arrows.  Finkel's builders were in the quiet backwaters of India.

Netherlands Tourist Attraction in Dordrecht

Now here's another. The Dutch version is a tourist attraction. It has two amphitheatres where you learn more. Noah's ark is a cultural heritage, a childhood toy, a tale from ancient Babylonian times, taken to Finkel in the British Museum, and is known from religions texts, from Genesis in the Hebrew Bible to Jews, in The Old Testament to Christians, and in a later version transmitted to Moslems.

A reproduction of Noah's Ark, as long as a football pitch and four storeys high is located at Dordrecht, and is now open to the public. Admission costs €7.50 (£5.95) for children and €12.50 (£9.90) for adults.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/travel_news/article-2800344/four-storeys-tall-longer-football-pitch-real-life-noah-s-ark-took-three-years-build-floats-water-comes-animals.html#ixzz3GwIaxXDf
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noah's_Ark

See Wikipedia for picture credits and more details.

Turkey's Noah's Mausoleum

I must add this to my book Jewish Travel Tales and Guidebook. Noah must be one of the earliest travellers in the bible of whom we have evidence. His boat was supposed to have landed in Turkey where you can see and visit a hill named after him. Also Noah's Mausoleum.

Searches for Noah's ark are nicknamed arkeology.

Noah's Dessert In Turkey And Nearby

 In Turkey you can taste a national Noah's dish, a dessert called Noah's pudding made from fruit and nuts. It's Turkish name is ashure, and it's of Armenian origin. Ashure is also the Moslem version of the dish celebrating a later event. The dessert is also popular in surrounding countries. 

Noah's family are supposed to have made this dessert from leftovers to elaborate their safe arrival on dry land after the flood. How do you remember the name? Here's a mnemonic I've made up for myself and you. So, Noah's family came ashore and made ash-u-re. (I have to keep evading the spellchecker which turns unusual words into the more popular words.) 

Lots of different recipes for it, highly calorific, eaten in winter and all year, can include grains, rice, chickpeas, fruit nuts and orange or lemon peel which has been sugared. (I keep trying to write c - an - died but spell checker turns it into dandies).

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashure

More Information

For more about the Babylonian tablet taken to bearded expert Finkel,

 who looks a bit like Noah, 

at the British museum 

and the reconstruction of the circular Noah's ark using Indian expertise see

theguardian.com/culture/2014/jan/24/babylonian-tablet-noah-ark-constructed-british-museum

(Sorry, dear reader, about the absurdly short lines.

Long ones disappear off the page.

Everything looks fine on the page where I write and edit.

But when I check in VIEW - the layout has changed.)

You can also see various accounts of Noah's Ark on Youtube.

Jewish Travel Tales and Guidebook by Angela Lansbury Lulu.com

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