London!
My trip to London was great, albeit a short one (25 hours of traveling within three days..). I stayed in Troy Hotel next to Hyde Park, which I can easily recommend for everyone. Excellent location, and definitely not too expensive. After breakfast I stepped out from the hotel, crossed the street, and entered Hyde Park. Immediately I spotted this:
A tree!! And what a beauty it was. How could you not go under the leaves and enjoy the sight? I could've easily spent the whole day just sitting next to its trunk and reading a good book. People passing by gave me some odd looks - perhaps people do different things under the leaves in London ;)
I then headed towards the Serpentine, and stopped at Lido to get something to eat (was hungry again..). From there I walked down and after having a couple of disagreements with my map I eventually found myself at the Victoria & Albert. Now I don't know if it's just me, but the whole place seems like it was built using logic straight from Escher. You enter the hall A and exit from the hall M. Erm, right. After going up and down and up again, and using the elevator somewhere in between, I then found myself at the Study Room. By that time I was pretty exited because I knew that it was only a matter of minutes when I'd be sitting next to the Visconti cards. And finally they came:
O - M - G. I probably sat just staring at them for fifteen minutes without blinking an eye. Yes, I drooled. It was so totally incredible holding that big plate in your hands, looking at these amazing cards that someone had hand painted over 500 years ago. The cards are (from the upper left hand corner clockwise): Star, Page of Coins, Ace of Cups, Death. According to Stuart Kaplan, Death declares "San fine" which would be a form of "Sine fine", meaning "without end". I found Death's cardinal-like costume to be quite in-your-face. Wonder what kind of a reaction the image has had right after its inception.. The Ace of Cups was likewise a powerful image. The arrow pointing up from the stream reminded me of the Atu XIV in the Thoth deck. The stem of the fountain reads "Nec spe nec metu" which, according to Kaplan, means "Neither hope nor fear". The red stream from the fountain could be either wine or blood (Kaplan, Stuart: The Encyclopedia of Tarot, vol. 1, p.104).
I was quite happy. (made an effort to conceal the mad grin, hence the demented expression)
If you happen to be a Tarot addict then the V&A is a really good place to be. Because if you think that those four cards from the Visconti-period are the only ones in their collection, boy you're wrong!
Open the lid, brothers and sisters, and rejoice:
"Well, maybe I could take just one tiny little mint chocolate.." O - M - F - G !!! You should've seen me. I swear I was just like a child in a candy shop (well, maybe a diabetic in a candy shop would be more accurate, since I couldn't have them, could I?). Yes, I drooled. Heavily. I'm sure they'll send me to prison once they discover the damage done by my saliva. The collection was quite astonishing. Most of these packs were playing cards, not tarot, but nevertheless they were original, old and beautiful.
part 2 coming up...