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Big Ben
Ben is actually the biggest bell that chimes the hours, not the clock itself. Saturday 22 May
The on-again, off-again BA cabin workers strike is back on again after they won their appeal in the High Court against the court injunction imposed on Monday. They now strike from next Monday, the day before we leave for Athens! Of the four BA flights from Heathrow for Athens that day, two have been cancelled. Fortunately ours is still scheduled to run on time.
The golden run of warm Spring weather continues here (someone has to get it!), with no sign of it changing before Monday. We are now getting used to eating dinner at least an hour later, and for the last two evenings have sat outside to eat dinner. Being on the south side of the road, D&T's back yard receives sun all day and is sheltered from any cool northerly winds. Once again we watched the planes approaching Heathrow over the city, one passing in front of us every 5 minutes (Heathrow is the busiest airport in the World). They fly across at a distance in front of us that allows us to see them but not hear them. Yesterday morning we sat outside again for breakfast. The trains are particularly busy at that
time. About 10 went past in 15 minutes; undergrounds taking workers into the city, and fast inter-city trains heading off to all parts of the country west of London.
Yesterday, mid morning, we set off into the city on the tube for a 3 hour cruise down the Thames from Westminster to the Thames Barrier and return. We left the Westminster pier at 11.30, right opposite the The London Eye. Originally called the Millennium Wheel because it was built as a temporary millennium project, it has now become perhaps London's biggest tourist attraction, alongside The Tower Of London and Madame Tussauds. We made fairly quick progress downriver, in a current that is deceptively swift, passing all the now familiar landmarks between Westminster and Tower Bridge, including St Paul's Cathedral and The Tower Of London. A good commentary not only kept us informed, but entertained as well. The Thames is 215 miles (316 km) long, and has gone from being once an open sewer to now being recognised as the cleanest urban river in the World. It carries 123 varieties of fish. It only looks muddy because of its mud bed. We learnt that The Monument is the tallest free-standing
Millennium Bridge
Another millennium project, this footbridge takes people from the city centre to the Tate Modern Art Gallery and Globe Theatre. stone coloumn in the World and that the Great Fire started 202 ft (62m) from its site, the same as its height.
After a quick stop at St Katherine's pier by Tower Bridge, we continued on to Greenwich, through a part of London known as London's Docklands. This part of the river was once the World's largest port, dominating World trade for 150 years. Heavily damaged during the blitz, this area has now been completely redeveloped into high-rise urban apartment blocks and commercial buildings, with old docks and wharves transformed into modern marinas. The biggest of these developments in Canary Wharf, built on a 70 acre site that was formerly the West India Docks. Described as one of the largest civil engineering projects ever undertaken, it includes the tallest building in Britain, a variety of architectual styles, residential complexes, shops, marinas, etc. We have travelled on a new raised railway called the Docklands Light Railway (DLR) right through this area to Greenwich, on which one seems to fly above the ground. The whole area makes a stark comparison to the traditional old London suburbs.
Reaching Greenwich pier, we had another short stop near the Old Naval College and
Globe Theatre
An exact working replica of Shakespeare's theatre, it is the only thatched building in London. National Martime Museum. The former College started as a new palace for King James II until he ran out of money in 1669. In 1694 Queen Mary II had Christopher Wren (architect of St Paul's Cathedral) complete the building as the Royal Naval Hospital, until the Royal Naval College took over the building in 1873. Up on a hill behind the old College is the Royal Observatory, built by Christopher Wren for the Astronomer Royal. In its courtyard it has a line marking the line of zero longitude. Standing astride this line you can have one foot in the East and one in the West (it doesn't hurt). The Observatory also has a working time-ball, and houses Harrison's original clocks and chronometers that he spent a lifetime developing in order to accurately measure longitude at sea.
The final leg of our cruise took us further down river as far as the Thames Barrier, completed in 1982 as defence against increasingly high flood tides, and used 120 times since then. The tide in the Thames is a huge 16 to 18 ft, and bad weather in the North Sea can result in exceptIonally high tides surging up the river. It
River Police
London's River Police Force is the oldest uniformed police force in the World. cost 450 million pounds to build, but it is estimated that it would cost twice this much to make London's underground system operable again should it be flooded. At this point the river is quite wide, but the barrier was built here because a chalk bed provides a solid foundation. The barrier consists of a number of gates (each weighing 3700 tonnes) which rotate on huge wheels at either end. Normally sitting on the river bottom, allowing boats to sail over them, they can be rotated into a defence position to complete a continuous barrier across the river.
Sailing against the flow, the return trip up-river was completed at a much slower pace, giving us more time to take in again all that we had seen on the down-river leg. The weather was warm (apart from some cool breezes near the Barrier), and we were glad that we had brought the suntan lotion. Our seats at the rear of the open top deck were right under a loudspeaker and it was the clearest commentary that we had ever had on a boat. At 12.50 pounds each, it was good value for a good day out. If you come to
London for the first time, we recommend that you do two things before you start going to individual attractions. Firstly, ride the double-decker hop-on/hop-off buses. The two companies each provide three routes which, between them, cover all the attractions around the centre of London and Westminster. From the open top of a double-decker you get a great view, and the commentaries are both informative and entertaining. Secondly, take a river cruise from Westminster at least as far as Greenwich (a bus ticket usually provides a free trip as far as Tower Bridge). Like all the great cities of the World built on rivers, the view from the river gives you a quite different but complimentary view of the city centre.
Taking the tube home again, we walked back via Sainsbury's. By then I was completely knackered by the heat and, after a cup of tea, dozed off for a couple of hours. Last night we both got a further 8 hours sleep, the longest for a while, but are still taking it easy today. As one ages, you certainly have to learn to pace yourself! I rang BA this morning. The very nice lady was able to both confirm
our bookings and provide us with a BA Booking Reference Number with which we will be able to check in on-line on Monday. David and Tracey are away until tomorrow at a friends wedding about three and a half hours drive west of London, so K and I are house-sitting on our own until Sunday afternoon. Cheers for now, and go The Crusaders tonight.
P&K
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