Charles, Albert & Harry
We did laundry on Friday morning and then headed out to visit the Charles Dickens Museum in the afternoon.
Charles Dickens lived in several homes in London, but the most notable and the only remaining one is 48 Doughty Street. (The museum purchased Number 49 to run reception, a café, restrooms, and meeting spaces in the adjacent property, so I guess we should have taken our photo one door over.)
He lived in this Georgian terraced house in Bloomsbury, London from 1837 to 1839. The museum is arranged over five floors reflecting the domestic layout Dickens would have known.
Charles, his wife Catherine (above), and their first child moved into Doughty Street in 1837, the year Queen Victoria began her reign.
He arrived a little-known young writer. When he and his growing family left almost three years later, he was an international superstar, having written The Pickwick Papers, Oliver Twist, and Nicholas Nickleby. This is the desk and chair at which Dickens wrote many of his later works, including A Tale of Two Cities, Great Expectations, and Our Mutual Friend. It stood in the bay window of the study at his home, Gad's Hill Place, overlooking the front lawn with its sweeping drive (below).
The desk and chair were honored in this haunting engraving entitled The Empty Chair by artist Luke Fildes. Lamenting Dicken’s death, it shows his writing desk and chair abandoned in his study.
This unfinished painting by Robert W. Buss, featuring the desk and chair, came to be known as Dickens's Dream and was painted after Dickens's death to celebrate the author's vivid imagination.
His brother-in-law, Henry Burnett, recalls observing Dickens sitting in this chair in this corner of this room one evening, writing Oliver Twist.
The building block behind us is the south stretch of Claremont Square.
Claremont Square is a muggle neighborhood in Islington, London. However, to the wizarding world in the movie Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, this is Grimmauld Place.
The scene opens with a bin lorry slowly moving down the street before Mad Eye Moody, Harry, Tonks, Shaklebolt, and two other wizards emerge through this gate. Moody taps his stave on the ground thrice and then the buildings magically begin expanding, completely unnoticed by the muggles watching telly within. The doorway exposed is 12 Grimmauld Place, the Black family's ancestral home and Order of the Phoenix headquarters. (See Number 23, the middle black door above.)
We popped in King’s Cross Station for a spot of tea and were reminded of a funny story from our 2015 visit. A young boy ran out of the toilets behind Amanda, followed by his mother and older sister. Amanda heard the sister ask her mother, “Did he really just do a poo? He was only in there for like five seconds!”
On our way to dinner in the East End we passed this “chippy” (fish and chips shop). This is the neighborhood where the serial killer Jack the Ripper committed his crimes in 1888, and the name is a wonderful pun.
After becoming a monk, Renshōbō (originally Kumagai Jirō) vowed to always face West, and he famously rode his horse backward to achieve this, as he traveled from Kyoto to the Kantō region of Japan. The act of riding backward is symbolic of his commitment to his monastic path.
We were in San Diego when Amanda got an Instagram notification that Unity Diner was reopening in London. Their opening day was today, Friday, April 4, 2025. We immediately made a booking.
I ordered a Forest Road POSH Lager. Once Amanda tasted it, she ordered one too. Delicious!
Amanda ordered the Classic Caesar Salad. They used shredded, seasoned mushrooms as the chick’n. The flavor was good, but she did not care for the chewy texture. My Double Bacon Cheeseburger, on the other hand, was hands down the best vegan burger I have had since making the switch five years ago. I would go back just to order this again! We also had an amazing Chocolate Torte for dessert. Unity Diner is a non-profit restaurant whose proceeds support Surge Sanctuary in England.
You know when you live in a place that is often cloudy, cold, and rainy because when a glorious Saturday comes along, the entire population heads outdoors. We walked from our apartment on the north, through Kensington Gardens, to the Albert Memorial on the south. We found ourselves among hundreds of pedestrians, large groups of runners, bicyclist, parents pushing prams, and dogs, dogs, dogs that filled the paths and green spaces under clear skies and the warm sun.
The premature death of Prince Albert at 42 years of age was a shock that sparked a wave of mourning across Britain. His wife, Queen Victoria (1819-1901), commissioned this magnificent memorial to her beloved husband.
At the bottom of the Albert Memorial, the “Parnassus Frieze” depicts 169 figures of genius like Shakespeare and Beethoven. The only woman is the Pharaoh, Nitocris. Dogs keep artists Hogarth and Veronese company.
The four marble sculptures above the frieze represents agriculture, manufacture, commerce, and engineering—linking Prince Albert to industrialized Britain
Each corner is marked by representations of continents that contributed to the Great Exhibition of 1851, which Albert helped to organize. This plinth represents the continent of Africa.
Asia plinth. Prince Albert was the driving force behind the Great Exhibition of 1851. The event was held at Hyde Park, inside a huge glass palace built for the occasion. This ambitious event showcased cultural and industrial objects from around the world, attracting six million visitors.
It was Albert's idea to use the profits from the exhibition to create a neighborhood of educational, cultural, and scientific institutions. Nicknamed “Albertopolis,” this area includes world-famous sites like the Natural History Museum, Royal College of Art, and Royal Albert Hall.
The Albert Memorial sits on the exact spot where the central axis of the Great Exhibition meets the central axis of Albertopolis.
Europe plinth. Following their wedding in 1840, Prince Albert won favor in his new country through sheer hard work. Albert believed in modernization and was a generous patron of the arts, as well as science and innovation.
The Americas plinth.
The idea of their marriage was initially encouraged by family members, but the couple fell deeply in love. It’s all it bit creepy though considering they were first cousins—exactly like if Rachel and Matt married. 😳🤢
The cross at the top indicated Albert was a Christian prince. The cross stands above two tiers of angles, representing heavenward aspiration. Below the angles, the four figures on the corners represent the “moral virtues” of prudence, temperance, fortitude, and justice. The four figures in between depict the “Christian virtues” of faith, hope, charity, and humility. The triangular mosaics represent the arts of poetry, painting, architecture, and sculpture. Below are eight sculptures (only two can be seen), in two tiers that represent the sciences. The four at the bottom symbolise astronomy, chemistry, geometry, and geology. Rhetoric, medicine, philosophy, and physiology are just above.
The elaborate V&A Café inside the Victoria and Albert Museum.
Time for a mocha and a spot of tea.
Back in the garden in front of our apartment (basement below the green door) to enjoy the afternoon sun, more tea, and our books. A most pleasant London Saturday indeed.
Our last full day in London was Sunday—the entire reason we planned our flight through Heathrow in the first place—to see a performance of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child at the Palace Theatre in London’s famous West End.
Our last full day in London was Sunday—the entire reason we planned our flight through Heathrow in the first place—to see a performance of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child at the Palace Theatre in London’s famous West End.
When the Palace Theatre was opened in 1891, it was the most ornate entertainment venue in London and described as “the handsomest music hall in Europe.” The Phantom of the Opera, one of the most successful musicals of all time, was written while its composer, Andrew Lloyd Webber, lived in his flat at the top of the theatre. Les Misérables played here for 19 years before Harry Potter and the Cursed Child opened in 2016.
We purchased great seats at the front of the Dress Circle.
The play opens where the final movie ends, at King’s Cross Station Platform 9¾ with Ron, Harry, Hermione, Ginny, Draco, & Astoria seeing their children off to Hogwarts.
The Palace is apparently home to the ghosts of Charles Morton (1904), Anna Pavlova (1931), & Ivor Novello (1951).
The play is in two parts. Part I began at 1 p.m., and with the intermission, ended at about 3:45 with this scene of Voldemort Day! Just before the first half ended, two huge dementors appeared on the stage…and then a third one came out from the box seat to our right and flew right up to us before slowly making it’s way to the upper decks. It was some seriously impressive theatrics to say the least!
On the recommendation of my good friend Tina Bayles, we made a 4:15 booking for dinner at Circolo Popolare (Italian for the “popular circle”). This restaurant is not to be confused with Circulo Populare, which apparently is the traffic circle in front of Trafalgar Square and the complete opposite direction from the theatre as the restaurant!
I cannot believe we had never heard of this place. Even at 4:15 in the afternoon, it was packed with people—popular indeed!
The interior is filled with a mind-bottling collection of empties.
Amanda had a glass of Grappa Il Prosecco Nonino that put to shame any other Prosecco we may have had in the past. We started with some focaccia—Bella!. Amanda had pasta with a plant-based ricotta—Bellissino!
I had a lovely, breaded and lightly fried eggplant (aubergine) with tomato sauce. Suffice it to say, neither of us had had pasta or sauce like this before—Delizioso!
Saluti Tina! Prego!
Dinner was amazing! As was the second half of the play. We laughed, we cried—it truly was an experience we will remember and treasure.
