London 2
Trip Start
Nov 14, 2008
1
3
102
Trip End
Feb 26, 2009
London, England, United Kingdom
Sunday, November 16, 2008
Deutsch, Mich and I met Max Kletski, a friend of mine who did actuarial studies with me, at Tower Hill station for a 10am walking tour. We ended up spending over 12 hours with Max, a travelholic who did exchange in Canada and Amsterdam, spent 3 months working in South Africa and is now working in London, so quite a good guy to get tips from for our trip.
The walking tour we did was excellent. We had a very knowledgeable Canadian guide Mike, who recently completed a major in history, automatically gaining my respect (if it was any other arts major, I would have asked for a new guide). This was also a Sandemans New London tour, taking us along the Thames past St Paul's Cathedral, Globe Theatre, Tower of London, numerous monuments, and next to Millenium, Tower and London Bridges. I highly recommend these walking tours to any travellers going to Europe, we'll prob do some of this company's tours in other European cities - we got a great chance to see many sites in 2.5 hours, with our guide explaining the background behind each landmark and giving us plenty of time to take photos.
Mike told us plenty of interesting stories, including some of the strange archaic laws that are still in place. eg. If a pregnant woman asks a policeman where a toilet is, and there isn't one within 100 yards, the policeman is legally obliged to offer her his hat to pee in.
Southbank
After the tour, Max took us to Southbank along the River Thames, which is quite reminiscent of Melbourne's Southbank in look, and Circular Quay in buskers. Along the way, we had a look inside the Tate Modern, which used to be a power plant, and it is ENORMOUS! As Deutsch kept pointing out, the building itself was more impressive than the artwork inside. I enjoy contemporary art as much as I enjoy contemporary music, consequently I had very little interest in any of it except for two Picassos, and a colourful rope attached from the ceiling, which you can see from close up has been made from hundreds of coloured bars of soap. Our next destination was more worthwhile.
Shakespeare's Globe Theatre
I am thoroughly impressed at how this was recreated. In less chilly seasons you can watch Shakespeare's plays in the very same place and structure that his contemporaries watched them in, Max saw a modern play there once and said even that was a good experience. Since the Great Fire of London in 1666, this is the only building in all of London that's been allowed to have a thatched roof.
We took a few token photos ... inside the museum there was a small balcony, so we got Mich and Max to give us a Romeo & Juliet pose. We had a guide take us through to the theatre itself, explaining what it would have been like watching a play at the time, and how the recreated theatre was built. I'm amazed at how authentic it all looks, several people have recommended this as a must-do in London and I definitely agree. We all found it pretty interesting, and took a lot of photos inside.
On the way back, we walked along the Millenium Bridge, which Londoners call the Wobbly Bridge. On the day it opened in 2000, there were so many people on the bridge that it started wobbling, and people would come in large groups standing on either edge to start rocking it. We tried this, but since the bridge was stabilised (it was closed for a year!) it's become far more difficult.
Disappointing Trivia (it's possible)
With no plans for the night, Max suggested we all go for dinner and a pub quiz at The Railway near him in West Hampstead. Someone told Mich before our trip that he bets Dane will go to a trivia place within a few days, and they were spot on. Except this one was crap. It was scheduled to start at 8, yet they began the questions at 9, and we were all exhausted after getting up pretty early in the morning.
Overall I think we did quite well. We managed to (prob) score a perfect round, as well as work out the 5 teams to have ever competed in the Premier League whose names start with a vowel, and the 5 European countries sharing a border with exactly 1 country ... but cos they took so damn long we were too tired to stay til the end and we have no idea how we actually went. And Londoners should be ashamed of their flat London Pride beer, I'd describe it as a bit like making love in a canoe ... it's fucking close to water
Tomorrow we're doing the other walking tour (the 1 I started yesterday) which should be quite exciting.
