30th May 2017
London truly has an erratic weather. One moment it is cloudy, the other moment it is sunny sky and another moment it is raining. So whenever you visited somewhere indoor, try to go in rainy days less you will miss the sunshine while you are indoors and raining when you are about to leave.
The weather today is no exception. The sky is covered with clouds, not those that are plum with defined shapes, but those that are a grey mash of clouds. We decided to start the day by taking the Thames River Cruise from the Westminster Pier. We chose the circular city cruise as it has the least queue and besides, it only costs £10.00 per adult and the children ride for free. The cruise itself was quite enjoyable but I supposed the River Thames has seen better water quality. It was murky during our visit. The crew introduced the sights and brief history for the entire cruise and we decided to alight at St. Katharines Pier.
The weather today is no exception. The sky is covered with clouds, not those that are plum with defined shapes, but those that are a grey mash of clouds. We decided to start the day by taking the Thames River Cruise from the Westminster Pier. We chose the circular city cruise as it has the least queue and besides, it only costs £10.00 per adult and the children ride for free. The cruise itself was quite enjoyable but I supposed the River Thames has seen better water quality. It was murky during our visit. The crew introduced the sights and brief history for the entire cruise and we decided to alight at St. Katharines Pier.
From St. Katharines, we are just a stone's throw away from the Tower Bridge, so naturally we visited this historical iconic attraction. The entrance fee is £9.80 per adult and the children are yet again omitted from paying any fees. There is a lift up to the tower and a lift down from the other end of the tower. The view from the Tower Bridge is beautiful and apart from the horizontal view, you get a vertical view through the see-through glass on the floor. For that price, it is a highly recommended location. There is only one toilet in this attraction and it can be found in level 2, which you can either walk down the flight of stairs, or wait for the lift.
Next, we decided to head to Borough Market to have lunch. You can either take a taxi there for approximately £6.00 or just walk there. It is about 1.5Km away and the walk is quire pleasurable even for someone pushing a stroller. Our party split into two teams with yours truly taking the walk and we reached bout 5-10 minutes apart. The Borough Market offers a wide variety of cuisines, something similar to the Pasar Malam (Night Market) found in the South East Asian countries. We found some Ethiopian, Mexican, Columbian etc. stalls there. We tried the Columbian coffee and it tasted heavenly. We also had our Fish and Chips fix at Fish! We ordered the Cod F&C and the Haddock F&C. Both tasted wonderful and the portions are huge for £17.25 and £16.25 respectively. The chips are mediocre though, perhaps due to our taste buds being pampered by the fantastic fries we had in our earlier visit to Bruges.
Once we are done, we walked over to the Golden Hinde II, the wooden ship apparently used to circum navigate the globe, twice! If you are interested for a brief reading on this wooden ship, you can read it here. You can go into the wooden ship at cost of £6.50 (adults) and £4.50 (child) but when we are there, it was already closed for visitation (???) but we are fortunate that the young attendance who was on duty allowed us to have a quick visit for free!
Next, we decided to head to Borough Market to have lunch. You can either take a taxi there for approximately £6.00 or just walk there. It is about 1.5Km away and the walk is quire pleasurable even for someone pushing a stroller. Our party split into two teams with yours truly taking the walk and we reached bout 5-10 minutes apart. The Borough Market offers a wide variety of cuisines, something similar to the Pasar Malam (Night Market) found in the South East Asian countries. We found some Ethiopian, Mexican, Columbian etc. stalls there. We tried the Columbian coffee and it tasted heavenly. We also had our Fish and Chips fix at Fish! We ordered the Cod F&C and the Haddock F&C. Both tasted wonderful and the portions are huge for £17.25 and £16.25 respectively. The chips are mediocre though, perhaps due to our taste buds being pampered by the fantastic fries we had in our earlier visit to Bruges.
Once we are done, we walked over to the Golden Hinde II, the wooden ship apparently used to circum navigate the globe, twice! If you are interested for a brief reading on this wooden ship, you can read it here. You can go into the wooden ship at cost of £6.50 (adults) and £4.50 (child) but when we are there, it was already closed for visitation (???) but we are fortunate that the young attendance who was on duty allowed us to have a quick visit for free!
You can also get a view of the London Bridge from The Old Thames Side Inn beside the Golden Hinde II and the best thing is, you don't need to have a drink there. Just walk up to the wooden deck and you can view the London Bridge from there. Oh, many people have mistaken the Tower Bridge as the London Bridge because of the magnificent structure of the Tower Bridge. I mean, if London Bridge is so famous (largely due to the nursery rhyme or whichever direction the influence is), shouldn't it looked impressive? Well, no. It really isn't. In fact it looked so plain, it could well be any bridge in the world.
You can walk to the Shakespear Globe from the Old Thames Side Inn and the walk is only a mere 3-5 minutes. Before you reached the globe, you will passed by The Anchor, an old old bar that was there since the Sharespear Globe existed. It was told that audiences would head to The Achor for a drink before and after watching the performance at the then famous theatre. More history of the Sharespear Globe here. From here, you can visit the Tate Museum of Modern Art for free but its not my thing. Besides, I don't like the building as it looked like someone giving a gigantic middle finger.
From there, we crossed the Millenium Bridge to visit the St. Paul's Cathedral. This is a 100% pedestrian bridge and you will get a good view of River Thames from this bridge. However, the best view is that of St. Paul's Cathedral while crossing the bridge. It is as though the bridge was built with the intention of diverting the crowd towards the church. The view during nighttime is supposed to be magical, but I have yet to find the time to photograph this view. Hopefully I will be able to do so while still in London.
St Paul's Cathedral was the final sightseeing attraction for the day. You can enter the church for a fee but I didn't and am contented with just taking a shot of it from the outdoor.
The rest of the photos for the day.
The rest of the photos for the day.
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