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I saw this row of red buses all lined up at a signal at Trafalgar Square, while I was waiting for a bus on the opposite side to take me to Baker’s Street. The buses contrasted beautifully with the grey of the buildings, Nelson’s column and the road, as well as the cloudy blue sky.
And before I knew it, I was digging into my backpack for the camera. 🙂
When I told a friend about my plans to visit Coventry, this is what he had to say:
Coventry is a rather nondescript little city in the West Midlands region of the UK. It has two universities (University of Warwick and Coventry University), two museums and a humongous Ikea. And, yes, it also has 2 cathedrals.
I didn’t really pay attention to the rest of his description as only the “two cathedrals” part intrigued me—a city has only one cathedral, and Coventry had two? This I had to see.
So are there two cathedrals in Coventry? Well, yes and no. There are two cathedrals in Coventry—the first is the ruins of the Old Medieval Cathedral, and the second is the modern, New Cathedral. But only the latter Cathedral is a place of worship today, so in that sense there is only one cathedral in Coventry. Both the cathedrals exist side by side, with the St. Michael’s porch connecting the two.
Continue reading “The two Cathedrals of Coventry”
All cities have a past that they would rather forget about and not acknowledge or showcase it to adoring tourists. The Cross Bones Graveyard in London is one such place.
Located in the Southwark borough of London, near London Bridge, the Graveyard was an unconsecrated site for burying over 15,000 prostitutes and paupers of medieval London. Though the site was never a secret, it came into prominence in the early 1990s when it was dug up for construction of the Jubilee Line of the London Underground. Excavators found an unusually “crowded graveyard with bodies being piled on top of one another”. Forensic tests showed that most of the buried had suffered from some disease or the other.
I visited the Cross Bones Graveyard one July evening as part of “The Other London Walk”, a guided walk conducted by a homeless woman. She led our group to the sites of London’s other history, a history not showcased to tourists—a London of the deprived, the homeless, the sick, and the disadvantaged.
The simple memorial plaque affixed to the gates only says what the site is, but the gates which are “festooned” with ribbons, and messages and prayers convey a far more powerful and poignant message.
I visited the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club, better known as Wimbledon last September. The first thing that strikes you about the place is the colour coordination—green, purple and white. The colour combination prevails in buildings, seats, flowers–everything.
But I am getting a little ahead of the story. Like all things, let me begin at the beginning.
Continue reading “Colour Coordinated Wimbledon”
I queued up for 35 minutes to get the first picture taken. As for the second picture, the place was all mine. 🙂
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