A touristy afternoon in London

Saturday 21 Nov (part 2)

Having “done” Greenwich (including a “bacon butty” for lunch), I then headed down to the river and caught a ferry back up the Thames towards Waterloo. We passed such landmarks as Tower Bridge and the Tower of London with the Gherkin behind it (the Gherkin is a rather distinctive office tower you may have seen in recent photos of London) and then St Paul’s came into view as well. I decided not to go to the Tower of London this time, because I’d already not visited it on a previous occasion (!).

My concession to being a tourist was to go on the “London Eye”, which is the big ferris wheel thingy near the Houses of Parliament. This involves two queues, first for tickets and then to get on. There were two little girls and their Dad in the queue behind me, and I spent some of the time jollying along the younger of the girls (about 6) who was suddenly having second thoughts about going up on this 135m high structure (I might have been less convincing in my jollying if I had heard, beforehand, the story of Anne and John being stuck in it for half an hour, and had realised, as I did half-way around, that the central axle and the outer rim are connected merely by cables!). Of course, it started to rain when we were part way through the revolution, so that the views were not quite so spectacular, but this seemed appropriately London. The rain stopped just as we finished our half-hour circuit, but it was still rather gloomy as it was mid-afternoon and therefore approaching dusk (see second photo below)!

And then it was time to do the tube back to the bus to go back to Oxford for a pleasant evening dinner party with friends of Anne’s and John’s.

London. Been there, done that.