"My dear fellow," said Sherlock Holmes as we sat on either side of the fire in his lodgings at Baker Street, "life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent. We would not dare to conceive the things which are really mere commonplaces of existence. If we could fly out of the window hand in hand, hover over this great city, gently remove the roofs, and peep in at the queer things which are going on, the strange coincidences, the plannings, the cross-purposes, the wonderful chains of events, working through generation, and leading to the most outre results, it would make all fiction with its conventionalities and foreseen conclusions most stale and unprofitable.
~ "A Case of Identity" by Arthur Conan Doyle
*This post contains Sherlock series two spoilers.
Sherlock Saturday began with lunch at Speedy's Sandwich Bar & Cafe, featured in the recent BBC production of Sherlock. The food was quite excellent (burgers for my friends, falafel wrap for me) and the atmosphere was warm and friendly. We've already decided to make a return trip.
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| Speedy's Sandwich Bar at 187 North Gower St |
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| Sherlock Holmes and John Watson meet at 221b for the first time |
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| Standing in front of the fake 221b |
From there, we made our way to the actual 221b Baker Street. Only getting turned around once. Just as London, A to Z helps Sherlock solve the book cipher in time to save John and Sarah, the trusty map book saved us from getting too lost while navigating through London.
The Sherlock Holmes museum was quite a treat. Especially for a Holmesian nerd, like myself. After the famous seventeen steps, the first floor holds the famous study and the detective's bedroom, maintained as they might have appeared in Holmes's lifetime.
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| A book in Holmes's bedroom, open to a page on beekeeping |
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| "His unanswered correspondance transfixed by a jack-knife into the very centre of his wooden mantelpiece" - The Musgrave Ritual |
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| Legendary icons |
Dr. Watson and Mrs. Hudson's bedrooms are on the second floor. These rooms contain fictional correspondence, artifacts from cases, and personal belongings from Doyle's many stories. I loved recognizing all the little details from many of the cases.
The third floor was decidedly creepy, but only because of the wax figures.
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| Holmes and Reginald Musgrave peer down - from "The Musgrave Ritual" |
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| The famous pair (and a corpse, of course) |
Our next destination being Northumberland Street, we caught the Bakerloo line to Charing Cross at Baker St. Station.
The Sherlock Holmes Public House and Restaurant is tucked away on Northumberland Street, near Great Scotland Yard (the street that gave Scotland Yard its name). The pub is located in what used to be the Northumberland Arms, the hotel where Henry Baskerville lodged when he arrived in England at the beginning of Hound of the Baskervilles. We didn't stop, but made plans to eat there at a later time.
Sherlock Saturday ended with a visit to St. Bart's Hospital. Here, in one of its chemical laboratories, Holmes and Watson met for the very first time. And more recently, Sherlock fell to his "death" from the roof of St. Bart's in the BBC's updated Sherlock We had a brief moment of silence.
First meetings - from BBC's Sherlock
The Fall - from BBC's Sherlock
*spoilers
All in all, quite the perfect Sherlockian adventure.
~L
~L
