Next day was the tour of
London, a city that is estimated to be at least two thousand years old. No wonder the locals call it "the City". Our first stop was St Paul's Cathedral.
The church was originally built in the early part of 7th century, and then rebuilt in the late 17th century after it was destroyed in the the great fire of London. This was my first time stepping in to a christian church, and I was appalled to find that it is a
burial ground for eighty people, almost all of them English aristocrats, including its own architect Christopher Wren. This is in complete contrast to our Hindu culture, where places of worship are considered divine and holy. I was looking down at the names and dates engraved on the stone beneath my feet worried that trampling on the dead bodies might be considered a mark of disrespect, but the rest of the visitors appeared blissfully unaware; they were looking up and admiring the massive arches and the multicolored tinted glass windows. I realized, we are also colored by our perspectives! Anyone who needs some exercise can climb the stairs all the way to the top of the dome, and will be rewarded with a spectacular view of the city. The stairs open only at 9:30 AM, hence time your visit appropriately.
The bus took us through a winding route showing us the
Somerset House, and
London School of Economics, then dropped us in front of
The Mall, the street leading to the Buckingham Palace.
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| The Mall, with the Buckingham Palace visible at the far end |
We saw the palace only from the outside, since we had other stops on the tour. The State Rooms have to wait. The weather was fantastic (as you can see in the blue sky above), which brought out thousands of visitors, who packed all the prime spots to view the Changing the Guard ceremony. Fortunately our tour guide directed us to a location on the right side of the palace (on Spur Road), which provided us an unbridled view of the guards marching in to take over the duty.
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| The more pompous and more popular Changing the Guard ceremony |
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After taking umpteen unsatisfactory snaps, we boarded the bus. Off we went to the
Tower of London.
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| Tower of London, home to Kohinoor and the crown jewels |
The tower is a 11th century castle that served as a prison until 1952. Today it is a heavily guarded fortress, home to the monarchy's crown jewels. Though there was a long line, it was moving fast. Once inside, we saw a dazzling array of ornaments, jewels, swords, and other regalia. Except for the 105 carat diamond, the Kohinoor, which was stolen from India, the other items didn't capture much of our attention. One can spend a lifetime studying the history of the objects on display. Since we were not that desperate to know the English history, we moved along in a brisk pace.
Right outside the tower is the
Tower Bridge (hence the name) across the river Thames. It is a museum by itself, hosting the Engine Rooms, that showcase the machinery used to lift hundreds of tonnes of materials during the construction of the bridge. Again, we didn't have time to visit the museum.
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| Tower Bridge |
I used to be a fan of digital photography review site
DP Review, founded by Londoner Phil Askey. He reviewed all of the digital cameras of the day. I stopped visiting the site soon after the shopping behemoth Amazon acquired it in 2007. His most frequent test subject was the tower bridge. I must have looked at hundreds of beautiful
tower bridge photos in his site. Weather god decided not to cooperate, hence my click above looks a little gloomy.
We boarded the Thames Clipper for a forty-five minute boat ride to
Greenwich Village.
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| University of Greenwich |
We saw the Cutty Sark, University of Greenwich and the Greenwich market, but the biggest regret of the trip is not visiting the
Prime Meridian. Ours was a guided tour that didn't provide much time for self exploration. If we had visited the meridian line, we could have claimed that we straddled the globe. Oh well, there is always a next time!
We hopped on the boat again for our trip back, but this time we crossed the Tower Bridge and went all the way to
Coca-Cola London Eye, the giant observation wheel, which has become one of the modern landmarks of London. The tickets were included as part of the tour, but it was raining heavily; more importantly we were tired. Since we had the tickets, we decided to come back the next day. The nearest tube station was Waterloo, which was only a 10-minute walk from the wheel.
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| Waterloo Station, the busiest terminal in London |
I'm a great fan of Bourne trilogy, in the third film a
nerve-wracking scene takes place at this station. I was so glad that I was at the same location. Both inner city trains and long distance trains leave from Waterloo. We took a train back to the hotel, ordered room service and crashed in to the bed.
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