Thursday, July 21, 2011

Normie does London




It is said that the biggest London tourist attraction is the gigantic (once the world's largest) Ferris Wheel called The London Eye. It certainly is striking at a distance - as close as I got.



While walking along the Thames in Westminster, in the rain of course, I saw a pretty little sailboat.







London has been harvesting the empire for centuries so it was not unexpected to spy a once-was neighbor, a totem from Comox Valley, British Columbia on display in the British National Museum. The totem looks slightly out of sorts? So do the Elgin Marbles taken from the Acropolis.








I studiously ignore the goings-on of royalty but I supposed Westminster Abbey to be the location of the latest royal nuptials. The architecture is fairy tale-like magical. I find the pomp and glitter of royal weddings to be supremely boring but not the architecture.






Westminster Palace holds more historical fascination as host and home to the House of Commons and Lords, mother parliament for Canada and model for many world governmental institutions. Here is Big Ben, the London Eye and Westminster cuddled together in one frame!



Westminster Palace has marvellously tectured architecture with a Neogothic or Gothic Revivalist sensibility.


Continuing on is Big Ben as seen from Trafalgar
.












Trafalgar Square used to be loaded with pigeons and tourists. Tourists seem to have displaced the pigeons. Some of them (tourists that is) were perched on the lions guarding the Nelson's Column.




Up the way from Trafalgar is Piccadilly Circus with its lights, clubs, shops and hustling shoppers, workers, tourists, buses and cabs. Along the way is the Garrick Theatre. Verity and I went to see - believe it or not - Pygmalion.










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