I was really excited - today we would go to Charles Darwin's Home in Downe, Kent which has been meticulously maintained by English Heritage followed by visiting a Roman Villa in Lullingstone.
On the drive out, we did, in fact, go through the famous roundabout in European Vacation. I had joked about it in a prior post but now the reality was here! It's part of the Lambeth Bridge on the eastern side. You can see it here:
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/Lambeth+Bridge,+London+SE1+7SG/@51.4972223,-0.1262458,16z/data=!4m2!3m1!1s0x487604c1f9cd9fc7:0x8cccad738c2b5dc0
And, of course, it was immortalized here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAgX6qlJEMc
Part of me wanted to drive around a few times in homage to this classic but most of me just wanted to get through the roundabout safely.
The drive went well overall and became more and more quaint as we got closer to Darwin's home.
Finally we had arrived!
One of the more influential classes I took in college started off with a slide show of the Galapagos Islands with the lecturer reading quotes from Darwin's diary with his thoughts of the extraordinary creatures found there.
Darwin's time in the Galapagos was crucial to his professional life as it was the lynchpin for his On the Origin of Species which proposed the theory of evolution.
Now I could be in his home and see where he spent nearly the rest of his personal and professional life.
Once again, I want to give great credit to the English Heritage team, who took Darwin's home and did him honor in preserving much of it and using the rest to create amazing displays to succinctly tell his impressive life story.
Their site for Darwin's home can be found here:
http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/home-of-charles-darwin-down-house/
The English Heritage website didn't directly say Americans can't work for them, so I'm not ruling it out further down the line. I love what they do and how they do it!
The house was spacious and beautiful. We went immediately to the second floor and looked at Darwin's diaries and the route he took with the HMS Beagle.
Lanna loved running down the hallways.
The boys did pretty well but started to get the glazed look in their eyes and restless feet as the exhibits didn't fully catch their fancy. Then we found the study and kids area for them. They were so excited to start drawing and coloring!
In fact, there was a contest for an updated design for the cover of On the Origin of Species, since the weekend we were there was the 150th anniversary of the book's publication.
Here is Joey's entry. Can you guess what it is?
That's right! A ring tailed lemur!
Here's Sammy's. Guess what these are!
That's right! Crocodiles! (We know it was pretty obvious).
While the boys worked on their cover art, I went and looked at the exhibits more.
When I saw these, I had to take a picture (again, probably discouraged and/or illegal).
Here were three of the Galapagos finches that Darwin collected. As the story goes, the finches and iguanas were the key animals to make Darwin convinced of evolution.
For the finches, there were 13 species Darwin found during his time in the Galapagos. And he wrote:
"Seeing this gradation and diversity of structure in one small, intimately related group of birds, one might really fancy that from an original paucity of birds in this archipelago, one species had been taken and modified for different ends."
He noted the unique beak structure of each finch and how that corresponded to the unique food it ate. The more Darwin thought about it, the more he became convinced each finch found a specific food to eat and evolved to eat only that food, whether it be nuts (with a large beak to crack them), insects (with a smaller, thinner beak to catch them), or plants (with a longer, thinner beak to penetrate the plant).
Seeing these finches, which played a pivotal role in Darwin's work and his legacy, was inspiring.
I also went down and looked in his study (no pictures allowed there). One of the staff was there and we talked for quite some time. The chair and desk were originals. She would clean the desk and the area as well and she told me she found a photo album his children had made for him.
History often loses sight of the humanity of someone since it often only focuses on their achievements. Hearing about Darwin's family life while looking at the scuffed leather chair he sat in helped make it more intimate and impressive.
When the kids had finished their drawings, we went for a walk around the grounds, as well as the greenhouse.
Megan saved us from having to do another selfie and took this picture.
I took one last look, thinking about the man who lived and died there 133 years ago. Then we left.
Our next stop was a Roman Villa. Again, this was a site protected by English Heritage. The villa was called Lullingstone and was near Darwin's home.
English Heritage describes Lullingstone's history and significance (again, amazingly well) here:
Driving up to it, you'd never guess a villa once existed there. It's entirely covered up and looked almost like a YMCA indoor pool from the outside.
Once you walk in, you realize this is no YMCA.
But they did have excellent baths and a deep well which would be the envy of other villas of the time, or even some YMCA's of today. The remains of the bath were here:
They had an incredibly well preserved central mosaic as well which depicted scenes from the Aeneid.
They also had a great activity area to make your own mosaic with tiny little magnetic tiles. Both Joey and Sammy loved it, although they stood in awe of Aunt Megan's exceptional eye for detail, creating a beautiful mosaic in the display that put the original to shame. Lanna simply tried to eat the tiles.
We enjoyed this window into the past. The kids enjoyed it too and really, really wanted a souvenir to remember their trip and their time with Aunt Megan.
Aunt Megan, being a wonderful and considerate aunt, got the boys a great Roman Legionnaire costume with foam swords. She got Lanna an adorable lion stuffed animal (although initially Lanna was cruising around the shop area with two lions in her hands).
When we left the villa, everyone was happy and content. We did drive by the remains of a medieval castle but didn't get out to look more closely at the weathered walls (all that remained).
The drive back to London was typical - it felt like it took forever given the traffic, but we made it home safely.
The boys loved their swords so much and immediately started attacking each other. While the boys were distracted, Lanna put on the legionnaire's outfit and loved it!
After dinner we all collapsed given all the activity since Aunt Megan's arrived.
We were all sad knowing that Aunt Megan would be leaving the next day (and that we'd need to get up early to ensure a timely arrival to the airport). Despite the sadness, we all felt we'd made the most of her visit.
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