Put the washer/dryer through its paces, and finally dug up energy to head out for a bit of exploring.
Took the tube to Tower Hill, and started a walk back along the Thames. Since I was last here they have really improved the banks of both sides of the river. Wide walkways, with plenty of signage and eating places. Clearly they are ready for the big tourist traffic this weekend and the Olympics. Opposite the Tower of London there is now a large square, with ticket offices, toilets, and fast food outlets – as well as the inevitable souvenir shops and stands. This stretch of the river is lined with dozens of boats moored ready for Sunday’s armada event. Tugs, sailing vessels, old WWII navy boats, trawlers from the North Sea – on and on. Quite enjoyable strolling past them all and having a good look. Settled on a hot dog and coke for lunch (£5.90 = $9,50). In the shadow of The Monument I found a barber and had my first haircut in 2 months – so won’t be arriving home looking like a tramp.
Spotted the towers of Southwark Cathedral on other side of river – never been there before, so I walked across London Bridge and did the tourist thing there. No one can crowd more tombs and monuments into a church than the English. Takes hours to wander around, reading all the inscriptions about the people buried there (or at least memorialised there). Among the various bishops and so on, there was a monument to some guy “Sadler to Queen Elizabeth”; and there was a guy Acton “Goldsmith to James I”. Such is fame.
The Cathedral has the very English name “Collegiate Church of St Saviour and St Mary Overie”. There was a John Overie who was a ferryman before London Bridge was built: a miserly guy, he accumulated great wealth from his fleet of ferries, and bought a lot of the land around Southwark. To save a day’s food costs, he pretended to die, thinking that all his family and servants would fast for the day while they prayed for his soul. Instead they all partied to see the end of him. Angry, he hopped off his bier: one of the servants was so terrified, he took an oar to “the devil” as he thought it, and bashed his brains out. His daughter quickly sent for her lover to help claim the estate, but he fell off his horse in his hurry to get there and was killed. So the poor widow, Mary Overie, sold all the land, and established a convent there where she retired: and that was the start of the Catholic monastery at Southwark which Henry VIII seized and so became the Anglican Cathedral. I love quirky history.
A bit further down the south bank of the Thames is the reconstruction of the Globe Theatre where Shakespeare performed many of his plays. If I had been a half hour earlier, I could have gone in and seen “Much Ado About Nothing” being performed in French by a Parisian company. Because there was a performance on, no tours available. Will see if I can get back there at tour time before I leave.
And just a little further along is the massive Tate Modern … a gallery with the greatest collection of weird and wonderful art as you would find anywhere. There were a couple of “pay to enter” exhibitions, but my feet told me to settle for a wander through the free galleries as sufficient. I was surprised that there is no prohibition of photography (non-flash) at the Tate: that is the only gallery anywhere in the world where I have found that.
A walk across the Millennium Bridge leads directly to the south entrance of St Paul's. I was too late to get into the Cathedral, as they were starting to set up the TV equipment for next Tuesday’s National Commemoration Service for the Queen’s Jubilee. But the cafe in the crypt of the Cathedral was still doing business, so I indulged that most English of afternoon snacks : Cream Tea (scone, strawberry jam and cream with tea). The cafe has tables scattered amongst the various tombs and monuments of the grotto. I sat next to the resting place of General Sir William Ponsonby “who fell gloriously in the Battle of Waterloo” – anything more English than that? I wonder if the Vatican will ever let us have pizza and coffee in the grottos of St Peters where we could sit beside the tomb of Boniface VIII and discuss what a bastard he was?
An easy walk from there to the tube and home via Oxford Circus. Dinner tonight at the Riverside Restaurant on the ground floor of this building – very nice too. Tomorrow promises to be a much cooler day, and I am planning on a trip to Canterbury.
Today’s unexciting snapshots can be found here.
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