London has always been in my bucket list so when PAL had a sale on its direct flight from Manila to London last year, I finally decided to book a flight for October to cross it off my bucket list.
On day 1, the first agenda was to join a free walking tour. Eversince I discovered free walking tours in Iceland, I decided that a walking tour should be my default activity when visiting a new city. Why? Because it gives you an overview of the city and from there, you can decide which spots are really worth visiting. Plus you can freely ask for advice from the tour guide like information only locals would know.
I couldn't recommend the London walking tour we joined though because there were a lot of dropouts from the tour group. It so happened that our guide, in his intention to orient non-Brits like us, shared their political landscape and what he thought about it. In the first 10 minutes of the tour, a Brit stepped forward and told the guide in front of everyone - "I don't want to hear about your political opinions!" and walked out. Uh-oh...
Anyway, when picking what city tour to take in London, there are several to choose from (depends on the area or theme) but we chose the Old City of London Tour since most of the top tourist sights are covered there.
Below are some of the places we passed by during the tour. Please note though that since it's a walking tour, the guide will just find a comfortable spot where he could point to an attraction and then tell you a little trivia about the place. If a place interests you, you can just visit it after the tour or another time.
Tower of London. This is the palace that houses the Crown Jewels of England. But what intrigues me most about this castle is its dark past. It wasn't just used as a royal residence but also a prison. Several prominent figures including royalty and saints were held prisoners (some even tortured) at the tower. I'll do a separate blog post about the Tower of London - yes, we came back to visit it another day.
Tower of London
Tower Bridge. This is commonly mistaken for the London Bridge but this is not the London Bridge.
London's Tower Bridge
The Tower Bridge is a bascule bridge - it's composed of 2 bascules which could be lifted to allow passing boats and ships along River Thames. Later in the day after the tour, we decided to go to the Tower Bridge and walked along the bridge.
The Tower Bridge
The Tower Bridge
Here's the center of the bridge - the exact spot where the end of the bascules meet. So these 2 ends get lifted to make room for passing boats below the bridge.
Here's a beautiful view of River Thames from the Tower Bridge at sunset -
London Skyline
View of River Thames from the Tower Bridge
Now presenting to you (drum roll...) the London Bridge! Yes, that is officially the London bridge. It's just a regular-looking bridge and it's definitely not falling down. :)
London Bridge
London Bridge
HMS Belfast. The HMS Belfast is a Royal Navy Ship and it has been to several missions during the Second World War. It was also sent to combat action during the Korean War in the 1950s. Today, it's now a museum ship anchored at River Thames.
HMS Belfast
St Dunstan in the East. Located at the heart of the city of London, St. Dunstan in the East used to be a church. Built in 1100, it was destroyed during the Great Fire of London in 1666. It was later repaired and eventually rebuilt but during the Second World War, it was bombed. Only the church tower and the north and south walls survived the bombing. It was never rebuilt as a church but it was opened as a public garden in 1971.
The church tower which was spared from the WW2 bomb impact
I super love St Dunstan in the East. When you're inside the garden, it's so serene that you'll forget you're at the heart of a busy city.
St Dunstan in the East Public Garden
When we got there, there were a handful of people sitting on the benches just reading newspapers or enjoying a sandwich and coffee. Great place if you want to zone out or just have a quiet time. I actually zoned out just by watching the water fountain so I don't remember most of what our tour guide said while we were there. Haha... St. Paul's Cathedral. St. Paul's Cathedral is an Anglican Church. Some of the most important church services in England were held here like the funerals of Sir Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher, and the wedding of Prince Charles and Princess Diana.
St Paul's Cathedral
At 365 feet, St Paul's Cathedral used to be the tallest building in London until 1967. Its dome is among the highest in the world.
Dome of St. Paul's Cathedral
View of London from the steps of St Paul's Cathedral
During the walking tour, we weren't able to go inside the church but we came back to visit St Paul's Cathedral later in the day but picture-taking isn't allowed inside the church. But here's how it looks like inside from photos available online.
The Jamaica Wine House. Known locally as "the Jampot", The Jamaica Wine House is London's first Coffee house which opened in 1652. Today, it's no longer a coffee place but a pub house.
The Jamaica Wine House
The Jamaica Wine House marker
Jampot is located at the heart of London's financial district so you'll see a lot of business executives and stock traders in crisp suits especially after stock trading hours. Ye Olde Watling Pub House. This pub house dates back to 1668. A room upstairs is believed to have been used as a drawing room by Sir Christopher Wren while he was designing St. Paul's Cathedral. The structure was originally used as a hostel to house the workmen of Sir Christopher Wren when they were building St. Paul's.
Ye Olde Watling - said to be a favorite haunt of Charles Dickens
What else makes Ye Olde Watling one of the most popular pubs in London? Ye Olde Watling is said to be a favorite haunt (tambayan!) of Charles Dickens. How cool is that? Maybe he wrote parts of his his novels and short stories here while having a drink! :)
Bank of England. Established in 1694, this is the second oldest central bank in the world. Our tour guide said that the Bank of England holds tours for visitors. There are lots of gold bars there, he said, like Gringotts. Haha...
Bank of England
The Royal Exchange. Founded in the 16th century, this used to be the center of commerce in London. The steps of the Royal Exchange is the spot where Royal Proclamations used to be read out by a crier.
The Royal Exchange, London
Monument to the Great Fire of London. This marks the spot where the Great Fire of London started on September 2, 1666. Another monument marks the spot where the fire was stopped.
Monument of the Great Fire of London
Monument of the Great Fire of London
What's the big deal about the Great Fire of London? It lasted for 4 days and wiped out most parts of the medieval city of London destroying 13,200 houses, 87 parish churches and St. Paul's Cathedral. Whoa....
Can you guess what the building below is? It's London's City Hall. It's the most modern- looking city hall I've ever seen. Haha...
London's City Hall
The Shard. This is a 95-storey skyscraper (hotel and residential building). It's the tallest building in UK and the 4th in Europe. There's a viewing gallery and observation deck at the 72nd floor.
The Shard
20 Fenchurch Street. It's a commercial skyscraper but most people know it by another name - The Walkie-Talkie - because of its walkie-talkie shape. :) Or some refer to it as Sky Garden which is the restaurant at the top of the building.
The Walkie-Talkie Building
Royal Courts of Justice. I actually thought this was some kind of a church until the tour guide said that this is where one of the most expensive divorces in the world was finalized - that of Paul McCartney and Heather Mills which costed close to USD50M.
Royal Courts of Justice
Our tour ended at the Royal Courts of Justice. After that, we decided to have lunch at an English pub at Essex St. called The Edgar Wallace.
The Edgar Wallace Pub
After lunch, we felt energized again. Without any itinerary, we decided to just wander aimlessly. Just somewhere across the Royal Courts of Justice, we saw this small street where a lot of people entered so we followed them.
We saw this interesting structure -
The Round Church, Temple Church
Apparently, it's the Temple Church - the 12th century English headquarters built by the Knights Templar. Knights Templar is a Catholic military order which was active between the 12th to 14th centuries whose main mission was to protect pilgrims on their way to the Holy Land.
You know why else the Temple Church sounds familiar? It's one of the places in Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code where the protagonists were looking for clues to a riddle. There's actually a Da Vinci tour being offered at the Temple Church if you're a fan of the novel.
Temple Church
After the Temple Church, we went back to the main street and saw this interesting lobby along the way. Super nice, right? Could it be an old church?
Today, it's a Lloyds Bank branch. What an elegant place to withdraw cash!
Around London, you'll still see a lot of the red iconic telephone booths. Not sure if people still use the phones but some of them have been converted to wifi hotspots.
There are black telephone booths too.
Another London icon you'll be happy to see? The double-decker London red bus.
On our way back to Tower of London, we passed by another route to cross River Thames via the Millenium Bridge. It's a steel suspension bridge for pedestrians crossing River Thames.
Millenium Bridge
Millenium Bridge
If you're an HP fan, here's some trivia - in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Voldemort ordered the Death Eaters to destroy the Millenium Bridge when Fudge refused to step down as the Minister for Magic.
Millenium Bridge
Millenium Bridge
When we got across the River Thames, we easily spotted the Globe Theatre. This was originally built in 1599 by Shakespeare's playing company and this is where performances were staged.
Globe Theatre
When we dropped by the theatre, a Shakespeare play was ongoing but we decided to skip it. It would be an experience but honestly, I don't think I'll be able to fully understand and appreciate it. My mind could only process simple, conversational English. Haha....
At the lobby of the Globe Theatre, we spotted this self-operating typewriter. Twitter has this crowdsourced project which aims to complete the works of Shakespeare word by word via tweets. The system searches live tweets to find the relevant words. If the system detects a relevant word, the typewriter is triggered to continue writing the story. The challenge is - not all of Shakespeare's words are commonly used for tweets so when the typewriter stops, someone has to tweet the needed words for the story to continue.
Twitter's Word by Word project on Shakespeare's works
As we continued walking without a definite destination, we passed by this ruins - they are the Ruins of Winchester Palace. Founded in the 12th century, this is the palace of the powerful bishops of Winchester. The palace was considered one of the largest and most important buildings in medieval London.
Ruins of Winchester Palace
The we ended up in some kind of market. It's London's Borough Market - a wholesale and retail food market, and one of the largest and oldest food markets in London. How old is it? It celebrated its 1,000th birthday in 2014 which makes it 1,002 yrs old today. Wow!
The Borough Market
Stalls at London's Borough Market
Yummy goods at the Borough Market
We continued to walk and saw this beautiful church which happens to be SouthWark Cathedral.
The church is more than 1,000 years old - the oldest Gothic church building in London. And as the signage below mentions, prominent figures like Chaucer, Shakespeare and Dickens are among those associated with this church.
Inside the Southwark Cathedral
We also passed by this mall along the way - no idea though what's the name of this place. Haha.... Obviously, we were just wandering aimlessly. :)
Before heading back to our airbnb accommodation, we had dinner first at a Japanese fastfood recommended by 2 Pinoys we met at The Shard. Why eat Japanese food in London? It was 10°C and we just had to have soup. Haha...
On our way to the tube, we passed by a building with this marker -
I'm not really familiar with the works of John Keats and Henry Stephens but just in case you're a fan, once upon a time they lived here. :)
That was Day 1 in London. More of my London diaries next time. :)
