"Fear no more the heat of the sun"

Today, we were off to St. Paul's to see what there was to see. And the answer was quite a lot. Not only could we explore the main cathedral floor (which was gorgeous), there was also the crypt, the Whispering Gallery (which I had to climb over 200 winding stone steps to get to) and the Stone Gallery (another 119 more steps). The Stone Gallery was actually on the outside of the building and offered amazing views of the city.


The crypt contained the remains of both William Blake and Sir Arthur Sullivan. It also contains a bust of John Donne which somehow escaped the 1666 Great Fire of London, but I forgot about this fact while I was there and didn't look for it. Alas!

Since today is the day that, according to most people, Mrs. Dalloway takes place, I decided to pay homage to the great Virginia Woolf, not by tracing Mrs. Dalloway's steps through London (far too time-consuming), I instead indulged my love for the late writer by going on the Literary Bloomsbury walk.

We began at the Holborn Street tube stop, a tube stop that actually made an appearance in one of Woolf's novels.


We also visited the row of houses where several of the members of the Bloomsbury group used to live, including the Woolfs.


And...da dada dum...the former location of the Information Research Department, a British propaganda department during WWII where George Orwell used to work and which later became the model for the Ministry of Truth.


Then I made a quick stop by Persephone Books, which is possibly my favorite bookstore that I've been to yet, or, at the very least, my favorite independent bookstore. I picked up a copy of The Wise Virgins by Leonard Woolf.

Today, it's off to the theatre!