Thanksgiving in ruins

We began Thursday at the Museum of London. In addition to artifacts from more than two thousand years of history, including pre-Roman offerings to the Thames, it's adjacent to a remaining piece of the Roman wall. I'm not sure about that one, but at least some parts of the wall were exposed due to WWII bombing.

Next we went to the basement of the Guildhall Art Gallery to see the remains of the London amphitheatre. These were discovered while excavating for the gallery. The plans were altered to include the amphitheatre, two floors down from ground.

Another short walk brought us to the Bloomberg building and a similar story describes the Mithraeum therein. This was the most complete of the day's ruins, and the presentation was interesting. The upper floors of the space held artifacts and information. Two floors down was the temple itself, initially presented in darkness with the sounds of a ritual playing and some lighting effects accompaniment.

Mithraism was a male cult popular in the Roman military in the early centuries C.E.

Next we crossed London Bridge to the Borough Market for lunch from a street vendor selling paella and Malaysian curry. We bought some food for dinner, too, then made our way to nearby Southwark Cathedral. In addition to interesting Gothic architecture, it has an exposed cross section underground that includes the Roman road and later Norman buildings.

Ruined enough for one day, we headed home early to make an unremarkable dinner of bread, cheese, pasta, and salad. Dessert was an apricot tart.