Bagni di Lucca and Beyond

I have loved my days in London! My delightful friend and guide, Anup, took me out walking every day. We averaged 12-15 kilometres every day, so we covered quite a bit of territory.

Anup’s apartment is very close to Tower Bridge so we walked past it, crossed it and admired it every day.

The views from the bridge are excellent.

The Shard appears between buildings and from different vantage points often.

The buildings on the other side are impressive too.

Old beside new.

The area which was once a moat around the Tower of London is now filled with wild flowers.

We walked across the Millennium Bridge to St Paul’s Cathedral. The London Millennium Footbridge is a steel suspension pedestrian bridge linking Bankside with the city of London. It opened in June 2000, but swaying on its first few days caused its closure for modifications. It reopened in 2002. I am pleased to report that it was steady as we walked across.

We passed the Globe Theatre near the entrance. The original Globe Theatre was built in 1599. It burnt down in 1613. A second theatre was built in the same position in 1614 and stayed open until 1642. A modern reconstruction of the Globe, named Shakespeare’s Globe opened in 1997 about 230 metres from the site of the original.

The bridge is quite spectacular up close.

A wedding party crossed the bridge just before we did.

St Paul’s was waiting patiently at the other end.

More of the wedding party waited at the front of the church.

A couple of others looked the other way.

Views from a bus.

The Borough Market is wonderful! It is a retail and wholesale market in Southwark. It is one of the largest and oldest markets in London, with a market on the site dating back to the 12th century. There will be more on this in a later post.

View from a boat on the Thames.

Battersea Power Station, on the banks of the River Thames…more on that later.

The bookshop on a boat, with my friend Anup…more to come.

Paddington having a rest.

Chinatown.

Little Venice.

A night at the theatre…Guys and Dolls.

There are lots more photos of my England visit to sift through. I am about to head back to Australia via Helsinki. There will more on London, Oxford, Cambridge and the Costswold towns I visited to come.

Thank you to my friends Raffaela, Stephen, Anup and Poorna for making my trip so much fun!l