Tourist Extraordinaire
Monday 07/23/2007 1:55 PM (In the United Kingdom: 6:55 PM)
In case you didn't notice, I skipped posting here on Sunday. I was out on the town playing "Tourist" for twelve hours, and when I made it back to my hotel room, I took a shower and fell asleep almost immediately. So now I'm playing catch up, which is just as well, since I only took two photos today (Monday), though there could have been so many more. I'll explain that a little later.
To make things a little more orderly, I've divided up Sunday's photos into a few categories, and I'm going to post one category at a time. This one will include all of the typical tourist stuff I did.
The day started at Big Ben ... well, actually it started with a leisurely breakfast in the garden behind the B&B, and then an underground ride to Westminster station, where I unabashedly took the photo I've been wanting to take since I arrived but was too self-conscious of being automatically labeled "Tourist" by everyone around me:
When I came up to the street, I spent about two minutes staring at my map to figure out which side of the station I was on and where to go to get to Big Ben. One of the times I looked up to find a street sign, I noticed that nearly everyone around me had their cameras pointed up toward the sky. I stepped out to the sidewalk (in my defense, I had been under an awning), looked up, and this is what I saw:
So there you have it: Big Ben. And next door, the Houses of Parliament:
I took this photo from Westminster Bridge, and just behind where I was standing, I found this plaque:
Earth has not anything to show more fair:
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty ...
OK so I've decided I'm not going to reproduce the whole poem here afterall -- you get the idea, right? And if you really want the whole poem, and you can't make it out in the photo, and you're too lazy to google it, email me. Moving on, I took a boat ride on the Thames to get the requisite photos of a lot of other touristy places all within 40 minutes. I've decided that I'll have to get back to some of these when I return to England in a couple of weeks (like the Globe Theatre, which I couldn't get a good enough photo of from the boat to include here -- and depending on how much money I spend in Finland, I might try to see a play there, too, if they aren't all sold out).
Here's the London Eye, the largest ferris wheel in Europe or in the world, I can't remember which. Either way, it's way too tall for me to even contemplate buying a ticket, though I hear the view from up there can't be beaten:
Here's the Anchor Bar & Restaurant, which is the oldest such establishment on the Thames. According to our guide on the boat, Shakespeare stayed in the upper rooms (with red windows) -- it's right next door to the Globe.
And this would be the dome of St. Paul's Cathedral, though I'm hoping to get back for a closer look after Finland:
The boat ride ended at the Tower Bridge (well, at the pier just west of the Bridge):
The pier is conveniently (for us tourists) located right next to the ticket office for the Tower of London:
Since I didn't but a ticket for the tour, I have to reveal my ignorance here: I'm not sure if this whole compound is considered the tower, or if some part of it is the tower. I mean, I see several towers here, don't you? And worst case scenario: I don't even have the tower in the frame of the photo at all, which would be immensely embarassing. A rather unsavory history here, though: dungeons and executions and such stuff.
See? This, according to the boat guide, is where those doomed to die (Anne Boleyn, Thomas More, and the like) entered the compound to have their heads chopped off, though I doubt it was at all as voluntary as I make it sound. Thanks to our trusty Wikipedia, I've learned that the Tower is in fact the whole compound, which is included in the photo. Whew.
Permalink | Comments | Trackback