The Walk from Trafalgar Square and on the Tower Bridge....Kew Gardens.

 We  started in the morning, to go to Trafalgar Square and  went by walk to see places from  Trafalgar Square.

In the Trafalgar Square they had  arranged Platforms for some Music Show.  So it did not look as impressive as it was the other day.

I took pictures of myself  on the steps of National Gallery which looked so Majestic.  Alas we did not have time to go and see inside.  How I wish I had time for that too.

We walked up to Big Ben. We could see many nice Historic Buildings on the way.  It was such a lovely walk.   We did go to  the place where the No. 10 Downing Street is located but  it is  gated and we could not see the actual house.

  As we had decided earlier ,  We went to the Tower Bridge exactly at the time of  opening and bought tickets and went up to the Upper Bridge.  Lovely view from atop the Bridge.
There were many pictures of lovely Bridges on the wall of the Upper Corridor.    I was so happy that I had seen / walked/ drove on some of the world famous Bridges.
                           
                                                                Pictures of Bridges.

This Bridge I have not seen and not sure where it is located but it looks so lovely.

This Golden Gate Bridge, which is located in San Fransisco is one of my favourite places in USA

This Bosphorus Bridge  is in Istanbul in Turkey on  which we had  gone by Bus.

The lovely Millennium Bridge which we had just crossed the other day in London.

 This Bridge in Paris which we were to cross in just two days in Paris.

This being the time of Olympic Games  there were pictures of the venues of Modern Olympics held in different parts of the world. Hubby dear took pictures of each venue  (photo)and I would like to at least record the names of the venues in my blog.

1896  Athens, 1900 Paris, 1904 St.Louis, 1908 London, 1912 Stockholm, 1920 Antwerp, 

1924 Paris, 1928 Amsterdam, 1932 Los Angeles, 1936 Berlin, 1948 London, 1952 Helsinki.

1956 Melbourne, 1960 Rome, 1964 Tokyo, 1968 Mexico City, 1972 Munich, 1976 Montreal, 

1980 Moscow, 1984 Los Angeles, 1988 Seoul, 1992 Barcelona, 1996 Atlanta, 2000 Sydney,

2004 Athens,  2008 Beijing,  2012 London

It should be noted that there was no Olympics held in  1916, 1940, 1944 due to the two World Wars.

View from the upper bridge of Tower Bridge.

When we got down we were taken to the Engine rooms and old Mechanical Engines which were used to lift the Bridge was kept there.  We found out the schedule  time the Bridge opens  to allow the Ships to pass under for the next day. It was 9.45 a.m.   to 10.15 a.m. and we decided to be there the next day to watch this.

My husband wanted to see the Olympics Location , which is in Stratford.  We bought up and down ticket to Stratford.  (You would have guessed by now it is outside the zone to which we had ticket).

  Lot of crowd was there in the station but once we went out,  we were not allowed to go to the Stadium as the Para Olympics were to be held there in one or two days.

  So we had to just return from the Stratford Station.    We were to change train in Nottingham hill station to take a train to Gloucester Station to reach our Hotel room.   I could see lots of crowd in the train which I had not seen even during the peak hours on week days, and wondered why.  We got down and every body seemed to be getting down at this station.

  Normally people just run in the London underground , but today people were just moving inch by inch along with the crowd.

  When we came to the point where we had to take the turn to take the other 'line' to go to  Gloucester, we were stopped by Police and said no 'interchange' and only exit.  

We found out that Nottingham hill carnival was going on and every one was going to attend the carnival and that is why only exit was allowed as every body seemed to be going to the carnival. I was surprised to see so many people with children .  Traffic was being diverted and we finally managed to find out to take the Bus which goes to our place and  reached the hotel. (thanks to oyster card which was valid for bus also and we were  within zone 1 and 2.)

We came home and had lunch and started for Kew Garden  by Train . We had to pay the difference  which was less than a pound.   We could reach Kew Garden only at 3.30 p.m as we had lost considerable time in  going to Olympic stadium and the big confusion due to the carnival.

This is a huge botanical garden.  We bought tickets to go inside and once inside bought tickets to go around in a small  trailer like vehicle.  This is normally  a hop on /hop off  transport but we being late entrants into the garden, it was the last trip for the trailer.  So we decided to see the  garden once  just being in the trailer as it is a very huge garden.

Once back from the trailer round,  we went by walk to see the glass houses  and places near by inside the garden.  The  garden has some two, three big glass houses built during Victorian era and lots of tropical plants were inside.  Whole garden was excellent.

Glass House.

Glass House.

Inside the Glass House

Oldest Tree

Some Flowers patches

We started back by around 5.30 p.m. and took a train to Waterloo.  Earlier I had seen the Harrods Stores while going some where else and taking the train by nearby station.   We went to that station and walked to Harrods.  This was a very famous name, when there were no shopping malls.   We decided we will just go and see it.  It was just another huge shopping mall, and the things were very expensive.  I just bought some small items just for the heck of it and the fun of carrying a  Harrods Shopping bag.

Thus ended our day .

Hampton Court

Today our plan was to go to Hampton Court in the afternoon.  
Morning we got up early,    had breakfast and went to Tower Bridge.    We walked on the bridge and           I found out that they allow us to go up the Bridge where there is a walk way.    Decided we would do that either  the next day or Monday.
   Walked on the Jubilee Walk.  These  walk ways are marked , so that people can walk these paths and will be able to see many of the famous monuments on the way.  This is called as Jubilee walk to commemorate the Queen's Golden Jubilee year of accession. (previously it was called Silver Jubilee walk  and now it is simply called Jubilee walk).

                                                        On the Tower Bridge.

The upper portion  which connects the two towers, which is seen very clearly in this picture is the connecting bridge on top of the Tower Bridge.  This is what we decided will see later.

This is the original  London Bridge.  The other Bridges are Tower Bridge and Millennium Bridge.




                           

This is The Monument which we climbed the first day.

White Begonias on our way....

The Jubilee walk has many  paths and  we traced a little of it so that we could see what ever we wanted in the short time available for us.

Shakespeare Globe theatre.

Just a picture of the inside of the theatre....

First we saw the Shakespeare  Globe,  a theatre which was reconstructed  and opened in 1997.  This was built  almost like the original theatre where Shakespeare's plays were enacted in 1500s  when he wrote them and was  destroyed by fire.   This theatre is built circularly and people either watch it by standing in the front of the stage  or sit in the upper portions which is kind of balcony .  (costlier seats).    Vinayak had recommended this and asked us to watch a play and told us it will be a nice experience to watch a play standing in front of the stage.  But when we enquired about the time of the shows we found out that ,
 we did not have time.   We just went around the theatre and  did not even go to see inside (it also costs money)

The Millennium Bridge 

We saw the Tate Modern building ,  and got on the Millennium Bridge.  It was wonderful .  We walked across it (so many bridges  and that too lovely ones on the Thames!)  to proceed to St. Paul's Cathedral.  It looked lovely.   We had decided not to climb up the steps of the Catheral . (enough of climbing steps).  Reva had told us it is about 500 steps.

Picture of St. Paul's Cathedral from the Millennium Bridge.

Close up picture of St. Paul's Cathedral.

Reflection of St. Paul's on a Steel Sphere in front of the Cathedral.


We just looked around and  took a train to Waterloo Station.

The person in the ticket counter suggested that we  take one day ticket on all lines , as we had to go to Hampton Court and  from their to Wallignton to a friend's house for  dinner both of which are outside the zones of our Oyster card. We bought the tickets for 8 + pounds per person.  (This is what we should have done the previous day before going to the Windsor Castle)

We  got the train and reached Hampton Court around 12.30 noon.  Every body was helpful directing us to the right train.  Both Windsor and Hampton Court are small stations.  The Hampton Court (Castle) is very near the station and we walked  and showed our  train ticket and got the entrance ticket for 2 for 1 rate. ( Thanks to Raja who told us about the deal and I had picked up the pamphlets and coupons in the train station)

                                                            In front of the Hampton Court.

Hampton Court is huge and we saw  Palaces of Henry VIII  (Yes the same Henry who married Anne and then executed her) , Palaces of William and also Mary's Palace.

Tapestry.

                                          Another one....

                                  The Armoury....

The Palaces of Henry and William are distinctly different from each other. We saw huge Tapestries hung in  William and Mary's Palaces.  There were huge paintings on the wall which are called as Cartoons which are paintings of the Scenes which are to be copied in the tapestry which are woven in wool.  There are many other original  paintings on the walls of the  State rooms.
I have to read British History.  Though I know little about Henry VIII, I need to know about Kings/ Queens after and before him.  (This I recorded last year but yet to get hold of a book on British History.  Hope to do it soon.)


The Gardens are Huge and     toooooo good. (Earlier we had our packed lunch the great uppuma before entering the Palace in the huge lawns outside.)     We spent almost the same time in the neatly laid out garden  as we spent inside the huge palaces.

Some Flowers in the Garden..

            The entrance to the maze....

Inside the Maze.........

The much needed rest to my legs......

The water body inside the Garden....

The neatly laid out garden with lovely sculptures.......

     Hampton court from the  Garden side.

Another beautifully laid out flower beds.  this was enclosed with a gate and we had to take picture from outside..

The Grape Vine which is there from Centuries.....

Those lovely  trees which look like big Mushrooms and also a water fountain.

It started raining outside while we were inside the Palace.  The famous unpredictable weather God  of London  has been very kind to us so far and it rained when we  were inside seeing the Palaces.   We took out our umbrellas  which we carried with us always and stepped into the lovely gardens.

 Hey and Presto it stopped raining.  Beautifully laid out gardens with lovely flowers, trees and plants.  There is a huge maze built? out of bushes and we managed to enter it and also come out successfully after a little bit of struggle.

There is a vine garden which is there since 1700 A.D. and still yielding (  they told us normally  they sell these grapes but we could not get any.).
We called our friend Mr. Rajakulendran and he asked us to come to Wimbledon and then take a train to Ikea.   (All I could see of Wimbledon was only the station as we did not have time to visit the famous Tennis Mecca)
Though the station which we had to get down was called some thing else and not Ikea people told us where to get down.   The train from Wimbledon  was a small train which was more like a tram which I think was a feeder tram from main stations.  Our phone which we had loaded with local Sim,  just got finished the money which we had loaded and went almost dead  after we informed our friend that we are on the local tram.
I got so worried how I would locate  where he is waiting for us without phone, and luckily saw him waiting for us and he drove us to his house.
His house is a nice house built in the early 1900s and had old world charm to it with a lovely garden space.
Arundhathi , his wife who is our friend was waiting for us with a lovely  home made dinner.  He dropped us back in a different bigger station ( I think Wallington) and we came back to our room.