Today (27th August 2012) is the last full day in London as tomorrow morning we need to pack and leave for Paris. After breakfast we went to Tower Bridge to see the opening of the Bridge. We went little earlier and stood in a Vantage point so that we could take the pictures/video of the event.
Standing on the Bridge which would open later on.
The bridge is open now.
Exactly at 9.45 the Tower Bridge opened slowly in an inverted V shape to allow a small ship to pass under it. Seeing such a sturdy road on which we were standing and crossed only a few minutes earlier was amazing.
I had imagined it to be a very long drawn affair and would take minimum half an hour, but hey and presto the moment the ship passed , the bridge came down and was lying flat like an 'innocent thing' making us wonder whether the same bridge had gone up as if in defiance against what ever!!
Then the vehicles which were waiting in the red signal started passing up and down like in any normal routine signal.
I had imagined it to be a very long drawn affair and would take minimum half an hour, but hey and presto the moment the ship passed , the bridge came down and was lying flat like an 'innocent thing' making us wonder whether the same bridge had gone up as if in defiance against what ever!!
Then the vehicles which were waiting in the red signal started passing up and down like in any normal routine signal.
Now we hurried to Victoria Albert Museum. This Museum was set up by Albert the Royal Consort of Queen Victoria to exhibit collectibles.
This was our second visit as we had decided we would come here again. We spent about three to four hours here.
This was our second visit as we had decided we would come here again. We spent about three to four hours here.
My favourite Tragedy Queen.
Silver Bowl.
Silver item
Enamel portrait set in pearls
Court Dress
Embroidery work
The Exhibits were wonderful and the jewellery and silver item collections were excellent. There were so many tapestries, paintings, wood carvings and what not. But we had to see these hurriedly as we had our own remaining program to follow.
We came back to room around 2 p.m. to have lunch and started for West Minster Parliament building.
What a lovely traditional building to have a Country's Parliament.
We went to West minister Abbey but did not go inside. we did not have the time and we had not made bookings also as we had to go up in the London Eye.
Westminster Abbey
We had made bookings for the London Eye and so went and joined the queue directly, without having to wait to buy tickets. The London Eye experience was very good and we could recognize all the famous monuments as we had visited them in the past week. Even we could recognize Windsor castle even though it is not very near, as it was a very clear day. it was a very good finale to our week long trip.
We came down and took a stroll on the Westminster bridge and came to the boat ride point which is called the river cruise on Thames for which also we had tickets bought earlier.
it was a beautiful ride and we were taken under quite a few bridges on the Thames and with the evening breeze it was a lovely experience . The Weather for our whole Trip had been very kind and I kind of fell in love with this City sitting on the boat.
The London Eye
View of a Bridge from the London Eye
View of the palace from the London Eye
Inside the London Eye ( Carriage?? )
View of Tower Bridge from the Boat.
I had taken some pictures with some of the Olympic Mascots figures which were kept in different places in London . Here they are...
We returned to our room and I decided if I every get another chance to visit London I would do more Museums in a leisurely way.
We got up the next morning , had break fast and went to the Train Station St. Pancras International to get the Channel Train the EuroStar to Paris.
The Place where we stayed.
Our room, behind me is the small kitchen.
The Train Station
The Channel Train.
Good Bye London Hope to see you again some day.
2 comments:
Your last day of London visit seems to be very interesting.Tower bridge openibg for ship passage is an engineering wonder.I witnessed a similar but small bridge in Denamark.
Victoria Albert museum collctions like silver items, court dress take us to a different time. What is London eye? Is it a high rise building?
It is a huge Giant Wheel the one which we used to see in our 'jatres' like 'kallekai parishe' and little bigger ones in exhibitions. They move very fast but this moves slowly and you can have good view. Here the scale is very huge and the boxes in which persons are allowed to sit or stand are big and closed and airconditioned. When the wheel turns one round you are able to see in and around the places nicely.
The Wheel is famous in Singapore also but I did not go in it as the view is not that great as Singapore is mainly surrounded by sea. It had come to KL also and we went in it with Tejas but I was not very impressed as the view was not that good. But London one I think the first of its kind is Permanent (I suppose) and the view is very good as we are taken to a great height.
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