London Blog Pt. 4 - "A walk along the river"

Today was an amazing day! I know, I'm saying that a lot these days. Sorry. :) 

After having a quiet morning at home and then a quick lunch, we headed out for a walk along the river. No set plan, just to head to St. Paul's again and cross over the Millennium Bridge to the South Bank and see where we ended up. I could write a long post about where we went and what we saw, but since pictures say a thousand words I'll let my pictures do the talking.

Here's some of what we saw/did:

Really cool old building among all the City offices.

Church with a cool water garden in front.

St. Paul's with roses.

Walking away from St. Paul's.

One of London's fabulous street performers.

The Shard with the Tower Bridge in the far distance.

The Globe Theatre!

St. Paul's Cathedral from the other side of the Millennium Bridge.

Me on the South Bank with St. Paul's behind me and the Millennium Bridge to the right. On a sour note, the brand new ivory handbag that I'm using got stained by my dark denim while walking with it today. Seriously?! It's not too bad but I'm still annoyed.

Another really cool street performer, just floating around. He was still sitting there a couple hours later when we passed back by.

So, the cluster of tall buildings to the right is roughly where we started our walk. From there we went to St. Paul's, crossed the bridge, and walked all the way along the river to this point. Then we kept going along the Queen's Walk to the London Eye. Later we would retrace our steps back cross the Millennium bridge and then along the Thames Path to the Tower of London and then home. All in all it was about 6 miles and felt awesome. :)

Walking along under the trees.

Outside the National Theatre they had some of the props and costumes from various productions, including the goose puppet from War Horse. He was one of the funniest parts of last night's show.

This is a skate park along the Queen's Walk. Skaters and bikers ride around in here. Today there were large crowds lined up to watch them.

Random sandbox along the Queen's Walk for kids to play in this summer. Yesterday we walked by a couple ping pong tables set up in a courtyard for people to play.

A garden project that was set up along the river.

Carousel and the London Eye.

Everyone is enjoying the weather. Every park you pass by right now looks like this, if not more crowded.

Large crowds gathered to watch this group of street performers break dancing. They were really good.

So, I have this thing about London. For me, I'm not officially in London until I've seen Big Ben. It's like, THE London icon for me that just tells me, no seriously Andrea, you really, really ARE in London! So today, it finally happened. Our walk took us far enough down the river from the City that I could see Big Ben and Parliament. I'll be sure to get over to Parliament Square so I can see it even closer and get some good pictures, but for now getting this close made me very happy. :)

Another street performer, this one was making tons of giant bubbles.

Another awesome street performer. 

Statue of Sir Laurence Olivier (as Hamlet) outside the National Theatre.

This is a really cool bar/cafe called the Prop Room outside the National Theatre. 

Stopped for a snack and cold drink at Caffe Nero on our walk back. Iced latte mocha frappe and Belgian chocolate brownie. That frappe was blended to perfection and way smoother than any Starbucks frappuccino I've ever had. 

Walking back to the Millennium Bridge.

More headless street performers. Seriously, these would make awesome Halloween costumes!

So, similar to some of the bridges in Paris (and even some in other cities) people have started putting locks on the Millennium Bridge. 

At this point in our walk, instead of going back up to St. Paul's we headed east towards the Tower of London.

Looking back across at the Globe.

Another hilarious sign outside a pub.

Walking back through the City. One of my favorite things about walking through London is the juxtaposition of the old (sometimes really old) next to the very new. This is a perfect example of that.

 

Like I said, amazing day. Right now it's 10:30pm London time. The sun is finally completely down. But it's a friday night. Through the open window I can hear people in the park behind the flat and music and laughter coming from the pub around the corner. It's summer, the weather is good, and Londoners are enjoying every second of it. And so am I. :)