Greetings from London!

Also, from Paris, York, Liverpool, and Bath!

Hi, everybody! My husband and I were on vacation for the last couple of weeks, but I managed to schedule the official newsletter to go out on time. Today would be the day a Comics NEWS Digest would go out, but I’ve barely had a chance to compile the headlines since we got back so I thought I’d bump it by a week and share some photos in the meantime. Please enjoy.

We landed in London, but then immediately took the Chunnel to Paris. I’ve always wanted to see the Eiffel Tower, so we made sure to stop there. I didn’t even need to go inside or to the top, just being able to see it was a dream come true! We visited it during the day but also at night and got to see it lit.

We had tickets to the Louvre at 10:30 am and spent the better part of the day there, looking at hundreds of famous and/or beautiful works of art. This allegorical painting, The Union of Drawing and Color by Guido Reni, probably isn’t the best example of either quality but it really struck me. Also, I thought it the most fitting to share in a newsletter devoted to the art of comics.

Next stop was Père Lachaise Cemetery, where my husband visited the graves of Jim Morrison and Édith Piaf and I visited the graves of Gertrude Stein and Oscar Wilde (among many, many others) (yes, I know, I was predictable). This was the best picture I took out of all of them and shows the barrier that has been put up to stop visitors from kissing Oscar Wilde’s headstone.

We returned to London to spend a couple of days there, and I had another dream come true when we took a guided tour of Shakespeare’s Globe. It’s a re-creation of the original Globe Theatre that burned down in 1613; I had just begun my Shakespeare studies in earnest when construction finished, and I’ve wanted to see it ever since. Unfortunately, I didn’t get many good pictures of the building or the stage, but here’s the copy of Shakespeare’s First Folio from 1623 that they have on display. This experience was everything I’d hoped it would be.

Just down the street from the Globe is the Tower Bridge, one of many sights we saw that are practically synonymous with London. We didn’t climb to the top, but it was fun to cross it all the same.

Of course, on the other side of the Tower Bridge is the Tower of London, which actually has several towers from several centuries. Pictured here is the White Tower. It was awe inspiring to see so many rooms that I’d only read about, sometimes in the works of Shakespeare mentioned above.

My husband is a fan of Chelsea Football Club, so the real purpose of this trip was to visit Chelsea stadium, Stamford Bridge. We didn’t get to see a match, but we took a tour. I’m not much of a sports guy, but I enjoyed myself. And it was nice to see one of my husband’s dreams come true.

After London, we went north to York. That city is full of history, including Clifford’s Tower pictured above. It was first built in 1068, but this structure dates back to the 13th century.

From York, we went to Liverpool, which understandably has several statues of the Beatles and people from their orbit, including George Martin, Brian Epstein, and Cilla Black. In the background of this photo, you can see part of the Cavern “Wall of Fame,” which highlights the more than 1,800 bands and artists who have played at the famous Cavern Club.

We swung back down south for our final stop in Bath, which has this Roman bath that dates back to at least the first century. You can see the reflections in the water of some of the statues that circle it, including those of Claudius and Hadrian. There were signs everywhere warning people not to so much as touch the unfiltered water that trickled out from the hot spring. At the end of the tour, there was a spigot offering filtered water to drink. It wasn’t terrible.

We returned to London for our flight home, making sure to get back in time to vote. And with that, I hope this has been something of a respite from any stress or anxiety you’ve been experiencing since Election Day.

If you have any questions about our trip, feel free to ask them in the comments! I will get to them eventually. The next Comics NEWS Digest will be posted next Friday, November 15 with a regular newsletter going out Friday, November 29. Take care of yourselves and each other. Thanks again for everything.