A day on the train...

Today I was running an arts society event which was a private tour of the John Soane's Museum in London. It is one of those hidden gems in London, not many tourists know of this incredible museum stuffed full of artefacts and treasures, which is well worth a visit. Visitors cannot enter with large bags as there are so many things all over the place and the rooms are quite small, so one has to be careful when walking around from room to room that you don't knock anything over.

John Soane (1753-1837) was an English architect, most well known for designing The Bank of England and the Dulwich Picture Gallery. However he was also a great collector of art and artefacts which he displayed in his house at 12 Lincoln's Inn - and then ran out of space and consequently purchased both the houses next door, numbers 12 and 14, which he connected up to his original house. Incredulously he managed to get a Private Act of Parliament passed in 1833 that upon his death his house and it's treasures would be left maintained as it was at the time of his death, which is the museum we visited today. It is a fascinating place, with one of the great treasures being the eight paintings of A Rake's Progress painted by Hogarth - there are many more paintings by Canaletto and Turner to name a few.

I was not allowed to take any photos inside, so despite taking my camera with me to London I ended up taking a photo of our station when I got back - as having just got home, in a short while I am about to walk back to the station to get the train back to London again as tonight we have tickets for the opera Carmen. It was too cold to hang about London all day so I decided to rather go home and considering that on a travel card one can do countless journeys in and out of London on the train in one day, it seemed the better option to rather come home for a couple of hours.