London - post Covid - Travel

Any European understands current airport chaos. Lack of staff, cancelled flights and hour long queues for security etc. Schiphol and Heathrow were hell in comparison to before Co-vid.  No more flying through passport control and security in a few minutes.  The Amsterdam - London train though (under water tunnel) is still double price compared to flights, takes a few hours and hardly runs as often as flights.  BA were good, when you actually met a person, but their prior emails and Co-vid paper nonsense before early check-in a complete waste of time.  So if you receive all these emails, ignore them, get to the airport early and speak to a human.  No one even asked or checked my Covid vac certificates so clearly their IT (which is not the problem for finding staffing) is a shambles.  But now onto London itself. 

 

I hadn’t been since 2004, and it is as busy as ever. A city of anything more than 5 million people is seldom pretty. Instead, sheer size and mass is what is impressive, especially from the plane, viewing the 8 million people city sprawled over so much distance outside the infamous London square mile and its monumental Houses of Parliament and Big Ben.  The latter's renovation is now complete. The best thing I ever did in London was the all afternoon visit to the massive Egyptian museum.  The prettiest sight I think is the Tower Bridge at night.  

 

I stayed in Twickenham which is next to Richmond Hill and a about 35 mins by train to Waterloo Station. London is so big that each suburb is a small city/village in itself, with local shops, markets, post office etc. Nice to see they have kept the red telephone cells despite being redundant. Also saw a fox chase a cat whowas chasing a squirrel in the garden!! 

  It is the size of London, and Rome for that matter that does not put it as a city upon my favourite list. Travelling takes so long. So I ensured I got to see something in the Twickenham suburb, namely,  the Strawberry Hill House, built in the late 1700's by a son of the first English Prime Minister Walpole.  It is in gothic style and somewhere between a white castle and massive aristocratic palace.  It was closed but you can walk through the gardens to view parts of it and it is quite pretty.  Even the gate is in gothic style. 

 

 

Strawberry Hill House   

       

The nicest place to be on any summer's day is near water and thus Saturday afternoon was spent next to the winding Thames. Arriving at Waterloo, a short 10 min walk brings you to the southern embankment, which apparently used to be quite a dodgy  area but now a hub of bustle with pubs upon pub.  If you walk along the river there are flea markets, food kiosks, customary bridge and river rail flower baskets. and plenty upon plenty of people.  It was as if Covid had never happened.  Walking east towards the Tower Bridge, along the Silver Jubilee walkway you pass the Globe and in the distance, the ever present Saint Paul's and behind that the hub of London modern architecture                                                            

                                    The Globe 

 

St Pauls

The tower bridge from afar with the crown jewels 

Ancient rossette in ruins, explained in below pic 

 

There was shade to be found in the side streets, with more pubs and old buildings and a church.    

Ancient picture in a tunnel walkway of old bridges

This magnificent tall modern building below is called the Shard. Like a shard of glass. Quite fitting! 

After having lived in London 6 months a long time ago, and multiple visits over the years, I still find my attraction to English culture minimal.  entertainment in pubs, pints upon pints of beer, with the deterioration of conversation along with it just bores me.  On the continent we go out for a hour or two to a cafe, then do something.  Whether that be walk, museum, shop or home.  I suppose drinking culture is also a class thing, as its the cheapest entertainment in an expensive city where too many people abound and inequality is high.  Nevertheless,  it was good to be there after so many years and I really enjoyed the aerial view of its main landmarks taken from the plane. 

 The London Eye aerial view  above with the southern district to the right of it

 

To the left of the London eye (west) Big Ben