We had a family outing to London on the May bank holiday - a leisurely car trip, dropping off friends at Gatwick and then heading for Southwark and lunch in the venerable George Inn, one of London's most wonderful (and least-known) 17th-century survivors.
Southwark is a fascinating place, where ancient edifices hide behind ugly modern buildings that themselves jostle alongside some of the capital's most remarkable modern architecture. You can visit Sam Wanamaker's visionary rebuilt Globe Theatre, or stroll a hundred yards or so and see the site of the real Globe, marked out on a modern car park that now occupies the site - or visit the little museum at the Rose Theatre, where you can look down on the actual theatre foundations lying under water for preservation, waiting for a grant to excavate them properly.
But we were headed for Tate Modern, to pick up some postcards. Once again we marvelled at the experience of standing in the astonishing spaces and perspectives of the old Bankside Power Station, now a controversial art museum. Controversy there certainly is, but there's also an experience of the artworks that you can only get by being there. Postcards don't tell the half of it.
