UNITED KINGDOM SUMMER PEARLS: London's architectural gems along the banks of the Thames
MUSIC: Europe's best pop and rock gatherings
BAGPIPES: The plaintive sounds of Scotland
SUBMARIUM: Journey to the bottom of the sea FESTIVALS: Fun in the sun in West Belfast
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FRANCE and SWITZERLAND VULCANIA: Blow your top at France's volcano park
ART: Berthe Morisot, the unknown Impressionist
FESTIVALS: Aix-en-Provence has it all
ART: The Barbizon School painters come to life
ART: Take a stroll through medieval gardens of delight
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SPAIN, PORTUGAL, ITALY and GREECE SALAMANCA: The city splashes out on culture
MUSIC: God's rock stars: the singing Greek monks
FOOD: Italy's unusual culinary delights
FILM: Great outdoor viewing in Rome
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GERMANY and BENELUX HORTICULTURE: The world blossoms at Floriade
BRUGGE: Belgium's second city shines
ART: Berlin's homage to multiculturalism ART: The best of the world's artists on show at Documenta 11 DANCE: Czech twin ballerinos steal the show in Hamburg MORE ..
CENTRAL and EASTERN EUROPE ART: Yugoslavia's modern art museum is back
ART: A retrospective of Samizdat art and writing from the Communist bloc
GRAZ: Austria's little-known city of culture
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THE NORDIC REGION DESIGN: Denmark celebrates Arne Jacobsen
MUSEUM: Get a blast from the past at Stalin World
STOCKHOLM: Welcome to the Venice of the North
MUSIC: Pianist Leif Ove Andsnes on tour MORE ..
PLUS LISTINGS: Other things to see and do in each region
London reveals a hoard of little-known and rarely visited treasures
Looking down the Thames from Westminster Bridge 200 years ago, William Wordsworth considered that "Earth has not anything to show more fair." London is just as fair today. The modern buildings that have appeared in recent years haven't spoiled the glory of the historic structures that lie close to the Thames, from Henry VIII's Hampton Court Palace down to the Royal Naval College at Greenwich. In honor of Queen Elizabeth's 50 years on the throne, London has organized a String of Pearls Golden Jubilee Festival that reveals some of the city's hidden heritage by opening up less familiar places while also staging special events in well-known tourist spots.
Every visitor to London thinks of palaces and heads straight for the Queen's home, Buckingham Palace. But fewer make a point of seeing Lambeth Palace, the Archbishop of Canterbury's residence, or Fulham Palace, which has a delightful 5-hectare garden, or make the trip downriver to the surprising Eltham Palace. Over the summer Lambeth Palace's 13th century undercroft, where the Archbishop worships daily, and 17th century Great Hall, which houses the library, will be open two afternoons a week. Eltham Palace was a primary residence of the early medieval kings of England. Today all that's left of the original palace is the Great Hall, with a stunning hammerbeam roof, but attached to it is a masterpiece of 1930s Art Deco, with built-in furniture, exotically veneered walls and a totally Hollywood gold-leaf and onyx bathroom.
Palaces were not only reserved for London's rich and royal. Ordinary workers too had their own minipalaces — if they belonged to one of the 103 livery companies, the ancient guilds of men who plied their crafts and trades in the City of London. Today only the Goldsmiths' Company regularly invites the public into its gorgeously gilt hall for exhibitions. String of Pearls Festival director Dylan Hammond enthuses about the access to places that "we see so often from the outside, just high walls and closed doors." This year for the first time the Fishmongers, the Tallow Chandlers, the Innholders, the Armourers and Brasiers and the Watermen and Lightermen are offering tours and concerts in their halls, which date mainly from the late 17th century, when virtually the whole city was rebuilt after the Great Fire in 1666.
The churches too have found areas that have never been open to the public. Even Westminster's great Abbey, one of the mainstays of tourist London, has found a hidden gem. The abbot's dining hall, now the refectory of Westminster School, has been in use continuously for 600 years, its long oak tables reputedly made of timber from ships of the Spanish Armada. For the first time the church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields is inviting visitors up to its roof and bell tower for a pigeon's eye view of Trafalgar Square. And just off Fleet Street, Sir Christopher Wren's "wedding cake" church, St. Bride's, opens up its charnel house filled with medieval bones.
Some of the pearls have been there all along, but hardly anyone noticed. These are the sort of places, Hammond says, in which you sense "being right in the middle of the familiar, but you turn a corner and suddenly you're somwhere you didn't know existed." Right next to the Barbican arts center in the City is the Charterhouse, a remarkable collection of medieval, Tudor and Jacobean buildings. Founded in 1371 as a Carthusian monastery, it became a school and almshouse in the 17th century. It is still home to 44 retired gentlemen, who have made a guided-tour video for the Festival, produced by one of their number: Sid Cain, former art director of the James Bond movies.
Other pearls are very well known but, being workplaces, have until now kept their doors shut. Whitehall, the street that leads to the Houses of Parliament, is lined with elegant, historic buildings that serve as government offices. Three buildings occupied by the Cabinet Office will be opened for the first time: Admiralty House, which was the home of the First Lord of the Admiralty until 1964; the Ripley Building, a small quadrangle of town houses; and No. 70, with William Kent's elegant Treasury Boardroom. Further along Whitehall the splendidly Victorian Foreign and Commonwealth Office will be showing off its chambers, including the fabulous Durbar Court.
Whitehall is also the location of the 18th century Horse Guards, a backdrop for a million Changing the Guard snapshots, which will open up offices in use today by army commanders as well as display memorabilia of the victor of Waterloo, the Duke of Wellington. Down the Thames at Woolwich the Royal Artillery, one of the most evocative regimental names in British Military history, is opening its home, including a very grand early-19th century officers' mess, hung with paintings, redolent with history and adorned with huge amounts of silverware.
London's buildings have drawn visitors to the city for centuries. The String of Pearls Golden Jubilee Festival shows that Britain's capital has even more history, magic and treasures than it knew — or its poets rhapsodized.
