Science museums of all types having been visited, along with various instantiations of history museums, there remained one type of museum that we hadn't yet managed to visit—the art museum. Admittedly, we'd stopped in briefly at the National Galleries shortly after we arrived, but we'd only stayed for perhaps half an hour, and been in perhaps four rooms, in particular those rooms that had seats. (Perhaps when we leave we can jointly author a book called The Benches of London.) Now Blaise is really a modern art person (and I'm really not, but I'm beginning to tolerate it somewhat better than I once did), and so, rather than returning to the National Galleries we headed to (the) Tate Modern.
It was, well, a modern art museum, housed in what used to be a power plant, which I have to admit was a pretty cool building. Also, it had drinking fountains that actually worked, though I don't think we used them. It lost lots of points with Blaise for lacking benches in the exhibit rooms, and then regained them for having a really cool view out over the Thames. There was a lovely piece lamenting the loss of the River Bièvre, and a large Mapplethorpe exhibit which we skipped, and a lot of other art that we didn't skip, including the Donald Judd sculpture that became even more famous when some parents let their kids climb all over it.
Afterwards, we wandered along the Thames for a while, stopping for an hour in a little park on our way to Mass at St. Patrick's, which turned out to be a little tiny church administered by the Franciscans. And then we headed for home, Blaise and the little kids getting off at Swiss Cottage and Sapphire and I riding on to Finchley Road where we bought food for dinner.
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