We left the house to gloomy, rain filled skies, which made it hard to believe it was going to be hot and sunny in London, especially when we drove through torrential rain to the station. It was very unpleasant, and even though we left plenty of time to get there we had to abandon paying for parking until later as the machine was playing up. The train journey down was uneventful and we arrived on time as expected.
London in June... who on Earth could have predicted it would be hot? And lo it was hot, but maybe not as hot as it could have been. Still, at times it was unbearable, on the tube in particular... but never mind, we struggled through it and had a great day in the end.
Our first port of call was the 'Frameless' art exhibition, which featured four different rooms each showing a roughly twenty minute projection on the walls. First off we visited 'Beyond Reality' which featured artists such as Dali, Munsch, Bosch, Rousseau and Ernst. This was our favourite room so in a way it's a shame we did it first.
Next up was the 'World Around Us' room, which featured artists like Rembrandt, Monet, Cezanne, Ruysch and a very cool composite of two paintings by Canaletto which made it feel like you were in the centre of a courtyard. The art was animated (to varying degrees) so for instance in this courtyard there were awnings that looked like they were blowing in the wind and in another picture of a boat on the sea the waves moved around you.
After two rooms we were a bit hungry so we headed to the supposedly fabulous cafe, where we fully anticipated being able to partake of a cheese and ham panini. Alas the only panini on the menu was tomato and cheese, so we ditched that idea in favour of sharing a sausage roll and a Coke. Sharing because the sausage rolls were £4.50 a chuck. I mean, it was a nice sausage roll, sure. But when you can get three not that dissimilar in Asda for £1.50 it felt a little bit like you were being ripped off. Also £3.50 for a CAN of Coke Zero and £2.50 for a single jam donut (five for a pound in Sainsburys, come on...).
Still it staved off the hunger while we viewed the other two rooms (Colour in Motion and The Art of Abstraction). Colour in Motion was the better of the two, although we ripped the piss out of people for thinking that they were 'kicking' the projections around the floor - until we realised they were actually doing that! This room featured Van Gogh, Monet, Signac, Seurat, Delaunay and Morisot.
The Art of Abstraction was the weakest room by quite a long chalk and differed from the others in that it was projected onto screens. This wasn't quite as effective and coupled with some pretty annoying music meant we unfortunately finished on a low point. Ah well. We perused the gift shop momentarily, avoiding the temptation to buy a Salvador Dali rubber duck and then headed up 47 flights of stairs back to the street!
We noted there was a Sainsbury's around the corner, which is probably where they get their donuts from.
We struggled to find the Frameless exhibition, since the address given seemed to send us somewhere completely different from where we originally thought, and we ended up walking back to where we started and then further past Marble Arch. On our travels we spotted the Cumberland Hotel, and on the corner a very small menu mounted on the wall... it looked pretty good and so we headed back there for lunch.
What a surprise that proved to be. After letting about 300 people out of the door, we finally made it inside and found a HUGE airy room called the Sound Bar. What an amazing place. The bar had a really cool light canopy above it and it was just a really nice place to be. We sat down and found our table top was spinable so we moved to another table and then had a fantastic grilled chicken burger and fries. The fries (so often the stumbling block of a meal out) were so hot we had to tip them on the plate to cool them down - unheard of!
I was keen to have a cocktail, but we headed off instead to the Wallace Collection, which is pretty amazing but so crowded with stuff that after a while you just can't take it in. I think they either need to move to bigger premises or to rotate the stock and show less at once, since it's completely overwhelming after about 3/4 of an hour. The Wallace Collection is free too, which I wasn't expecting, but they do ask for a £10 donation which seems very fair.
Highlight of the collection for me actually was a little exhibition of photos of the Queen and her Corgis. I am such a peasant. But there were some interesting things including some Canaletto paintings which had been included in the Frameless exhibition earlier in the day.
Unusually, probably going on the guided tour would have been a good idea since it really would benefit from having someone to point you in the right direction and focussing your attention on the important exhibits, instead of flailing around the place on your own gawping at everything and actually taking in very little of what you are looking at.
After a while we decided we had reached culture saturation and headed off to Selfridges for a look in the Wonder Room at the Bvlgari jewellery. We also tried out some Penhaligons fragrances while we were there (Halfeti Cedar - okay but I prefer Halfeti and Halfeti Leather) and The Coveted Duchess Rose which was nice (as it should be at £220 a pop).
After freshening ourselves up a bit with luxurious fragrances, we headed over the road to the TAG Heuer boutiqe and tried on a few watches (including the ladies green dial Aquaracer and the skeleton Monacos) and then headed back to the Sound Bar for our cocktails.
Rose had a Strawberry Margherita and I had a good old Pina Colada. It was so nice to finally get a proper cocktail after so many disappointing attempts at so many 'so called' Cocktail Bars (who don't even have syrups and purees).
It was lovely, we sat in a booth near the bar and I could have stayed there much longer, but we decided to walk to Regent Street and have a look in Kate Spade and Watches of Switzerland. Unfortunately it was far further than anticipated and the heat was really taking its toll. We just about made to Kate Spade, which was smaller than it used to be and with a rather unexciting display of stock, but then we just decided we had had enough and headed back to the station.
Only to find out the train was cancelled and we had a full hour to kill at Euston, where there are never anything like enough seats and the whole place was a sweat box anyway. Eventually we found a seat outside and as luck would have it the train did eventually arrive and we only left a few minutes later than planned. The train was pretty full though and was hot and uncomfortable, plus we had to sit outside Northampton for about 15 minutes for no good reason, which was frustrating.
Still, overall it was a brilliant day and we will DEFINITELY be going back to the cocktail bar at the Cumberland Hotel, that was fantastic!
