A great weekend
I spent the whole of yesterday and today wandering around the streets of London with my friend P, and visiting bits of architecture usually closed to the public, yay for London Open House weekend!
I'm quite exhausted, so the details will be brief.
Saturday
Visited Trellick Tower, excellent views. The architect Erno Goldfinger famously fell out with Ian Fleming, hence why one of the James Bond bad guys was called Goldfinger. There you go, your shit trivia fact for the day!
Stopped by the queue for 30 St. Mary Axe (AKA The gherkin) and laughed a lot! (Word are not enough to describe how long it was.)
We then went on to the Christ Church in Spittalfields, interior detail was incredible.
Headed down for an Indonesian lunch at Spittalfields Marked (highly recommended).
And finally Customs House on the Thames, nice to see what customs confiscates. :)
Sunday
Started queuing at 8:30AM for the opening at 10:30AM of the gherkin, queued for 3 hours (Some people were waiting for the opening at 6:30AM!) The picture on the faces of those arriving at 10:30 and seeing the queue twice found the building already was a wonder to behold, the sheer incredulity was awesome, and as more people arrive it just kept coming.
The views where excellent from the top observation platform and from the empty floor in the middle of the building. And the quality of the paper towels in the toilets was second to none!
We then decamped for more food at Spittalfields Market, this time at Square Pie, again I can highly recommend the food at this market! I may have to visit more often in future...
We then headed down by the Bank of England Museum, but the queue was huge so we carried on to Bank tube station and on the Docklands Light Railway to the Limehouse Accumulator, which is more machine than building, and was used to drive the hydraulics that ran the Limehouse docks, locks and whatnot.
A good day all in all, but I'm shattered.
P.S. I was also clever enough to wind up V later in the evening, no good day can pass it would seem, without me putting my foot in my mouth.
I'm quite exhausted, so the details will be brief.
Saturday
Visited Trellick Tower, excellent views. The architect Erno Goldfinger famously fell out with Ian Fleming, hence why one of the James Bond bad guys was called Goldfinger. There you go, your shit trivia fact for the day!
Stopped by the queue for 30 St. Mary Axe (AKA The gherkin) and laughed a lot! (Word are not enough to describe how long it was.)
We then went on to the Christ Church in Spittalfields, interior detail was incredible.
Headed down for an Indonesian lunch at Spittalfields Marked (highly recommended).
And finally Customs House on the Thames, nice to see what customs confiscates. :)
Sunday
Started queuing at 8:30AM for the opening at 10:30AM of the gherkin, queued for 3 hours (Some people were waiting for the opening at 6:30AM!) The picture on the faces of those arriving at 10:30 and seeing the queue twice found the building already was a wonder to behold, the sheer incredulity was awesome, and as more people arrive it just kept coming.
The views where excellent from the top observation platform and from the empty floor in the middle of the building. And the quality of the paper towels in the toilets was second to none!
We then decamped for more food at Spittalfields Market, this time at Square Pie, again I can highly recommend the food at this market! I may have to visit more often in future...
We then headed down by the Bank of England Museum, but the queue was huge so we carried on to Bank tube station and on the Docklands Light Railway to the Limehouse Accumulator, which is more machine than building, and was used to drive the hydraulics that ran the Limehouse docks, locks and whatnot.
A good day all in all, but I'm shattered.
P.S. I was also clever enough to wind up V later in the evening, no good day can pass it would seem, without me putting my foot in my mouth.
posted by C at 11:12 pm
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