Anyone knows that.
But I think nobody can say they know everything about this rich, everchanging and dynamic city.
I decided to learn more about British oddities and unusual sites in London out of curiosity, as I am always interested in visiting new places and ‘being a traveller’ even in my own town.
One of my latest findings is the Fan Museum.
It is the only museum in the world dedicated entirely to fans, not the electric ones, but the old style handheld ones.
In this unique small museum, you can see extraordinary examples of fans made of pleated fabrics, silk, paper and embellished with ivory, tortoiseshell and even peacock feathers.
The Georgian structure which houses the museum comprises of two elegant eighteenth-century houses with a frescoed veranda, a beautiful garden with a fan-shaped area, a splendid Japanese-style garden and a beautiful orangery where afternoon tea is served.
The museum begins with a room describing the various types of fans and the techniques to make them.
There are rigid fans and folding ones that can be composed of a single material pleated with toothpicks or mounted with threaded blades even.
There are half-moon fans and cockade ones and, in short, there are fans of all kinds, from every era and from every country, including the refined oriental ones, also from Japan.
In the museum there are even specimens that date back to the Pharaonic era.
The collection is so big that cannot be displayed all at once and so, twice a year, the fan collection is subject to changes in order to show new and different fans from a variety of themes, eras or geographical areas.
I learnt some fun facts, for instance I discovered that fans used to be all hand painted.
What particularly interested me is the way in which the fan, from a tool to chase away flies or to cool sweaty skin on a sultry day, developed into a fashion accessory which represented status and wealth.
In addition, the fan created its own language in an age where feelings were controlled by a strict social etiquette. The fan became, in fact, the extension of the hand, a refined 'body language' with which women could express delicate feelings without shame and without revealing intimate secrets in front of their gallant and lacking awareness of the husband.
Fan Museum
I have also come to discover that London ‘hides’ a Little Venice.
A little Venice in the heart of London?
Well yes, that's right.
Although not quite as big, or beautiful.
In addition to the Thames in the City, there are some canals concentrated in a particular neighbourhood that transform one of the largest metropolises in Europe into a Little Venice, complete with canals and boats.
Little Venice is a small suburb in Northwest London, near Paddington, which only a few people know about.
It is a residential area that develops around the Regent's Canal, characterized by green spaces, gardens, ducks and boats.
There is also a puppet theatre on the water!
I have heard that inside a boat (one of the picturesque ones found only here in Little Venice) various shows are staged, suitable for an audience of any age group.
Just like a real theatre, the whole show takes place inside a boat and refreshments are sold during the breaks. Heated in winter and cooled in summer, it represents a meeting point for lovers of this kind of show.
Just more and more reasons to visit a city which really has it all!
Little Venice
