January 24 Thursday

Up again with the alarm at 7:30 AM. Today was drizzly and feeling very cold as a result. We walked down to the National Gallery at Trafalgar Square and enter into the new Sainsbury wing. We toured the entire museum which has free admission (but two pounds for the map). There was a lot of older religious art.

Highlights of the museum — see the pictures that were taken. Our favorites were the newer paintings:  Monet, Van Gogh, a Finnish impressionistic artwork (Lake Keitele by Akseli Gallen-Kallela), great Klimt, and others. We had a light lunch (very dry tuna sandwiches with a cookie) in the museum cafe. We left at about 2 PM. The rain had stopped, but it was still cold and damp. We then walked back to the flat, stopping at a Marks and Spencer food market on Tottenham Court Road for food and wine.

Tonight we had an early reservation (back) at Joe Allen's for a pre-theater dinner. For starters we both had a delicious beet salad and for our mains we both had salmon with mashed potatoes with a side of really good peas! The restaurant was very charming with a real theater ambience (aka lots of Broadway posters on the walls!). This was a good recommendation.

We continued on to our West End show, Company, by Stephen Sondheim, featuring Patty LuPone. Neither of us knew very much about this musical, but we both thoroughly enjoyed it! One of our best theater experiences anywhere.

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