For my second tourist day, I walked back south to Covent Garden in order to visit the Transport Museum and the National Theatre Museum. The Transport Museum at first seems like a very silly place, with large models for children to play on and that sort of thing. However, it's actually a very smart history of transport in London. The museum starts with the horse omnibus and goes all the way to the Underground and bus systems of today. I really enjoyed seeing models of the horse drawn vehicles that read about so often in Victorian novels. For example, the omnibus was wheeled and therefore could not carry many people as was expensive. But, the horse-drawn tram ran on rails and could therefore carry more people and was available to the working classes. Sure, it makes sense, but seeing the actual thing makes the class distinctions much more real. Another interesting detail was the "privacy stairs," installed on the first omnibuses to have proper platforms in the back. These stairs prevented women's ankles from being seen and thus made it kosher for ladies to climb the stairs. I also like the Underground posters of the 1930s, which were done by various artists in order to encourage Londoners to use the Underground for shopping and weekend excursions to the country.

view from the upper gallery of the museum

me in a rather dark railcar

those privacy stairs I mentioned

One of the oddest things about the Transport Museum was this exhibit they had about how the Underground was dug. In the nineteenth century, they used the circular brace that was pushed forward as the digging advanced. The museum had a life-size replica of the thing and, very oddly, a guy standing inside in period dress who appeared to me to be one of the mannequins in the display until he moved. It was a very Disney moment.

After the Transport museum, I ate my lunch in the Covent Garden Market piazza. The market itself has the usual touristy sorts of things (football paraphernalia, jacket potatoes, and jewelry) and really wasn't that interesting as it wasn't a special market day (i.e. Saturday they have antiques etc.). The piazza, at lunchtime, is filled with tourists of various nationalities and ages. I also had the pleasure of listening to a woman named Spring singing and playing guitar - I think she was from the Midwest.

Covent Garden

Having eaten my lunch and enjoyed the sunshine, I wandered over to the Theatre Museum. The best part of this museum for me was the history of the West End section that chronicled the growth of the theatre district from the nineteenth-century until today. What I liked most about it was all the random curiosities they've collected - shoes of famous Victorian actresses, playbills, and even wigs. They also have a large gallery on the history of theatre in general and had a special exhibit on the Redgrave family, which has been involved in theatre since the nineteenth century. It was a very nice museum, however it was very cold as most of the galleries are actually underground. All in all, a very nice day of museum-going.