It's bizarre, but the headline item on UK TV news channels every day since we've been here in London have been nothing to do with Brexit, nothing to do with the royals, not even the antics of the US President, but the Australian bushfires. On commercial channels, these terrible reports are separated by the brand new series of advertisements to attract tourism to Oz. As we type this, the worst outbreaks are in Gippsland and NSW South Coast, while here, it's cool (not too cold, 3-10C) with weather alternating between bursts of bright sunshine, and a dismal greyness dampened by occasional light drizzle.
Bushfires are the first item on the news everyday.
The non-stop almost 16 hour flight from Perth to London Heathrow through a never-ending night was quite tolerable and we managed to get quite a bit of sleep as well as watch a few movies. Wheels started to fall off on arrival however, all first world problems, no-one died, but definitely an irritating inconvenience. The much touted Heathrow Express train into Paddington Station broke down at the departure platform and through everything and everyone into chaos: a text message informed us that our upcoming Eurostar train to Paris was cancelled due to the general strike in France: on arrival: our booked and prepaid hotel in London was overbooked and we had no room: and we discovered that some of our pounds cash, saved from previous trips, were in old notes, no longer legal tender!
The great concourse of Paddington Station, our arrival point off the Heathrow Express.
All of these problems were resolved, but given how you feel after such an epic flight and such a time change, we'd rather they didn't happen. After 30 minutes of confusion, Transport for London diverted another train set and despatched it from a different platform: it transpired that other Eurostar trains were still running (just not ours, a selective strike apparently), and we could rebook: it took an hour, but we were found another hotel nearby (but couldn't get to it quickly due to a police operation): and the Bank of England has an office to exchange old currency notes.
The Bank of England (behind the bus) where we passed many layers of security to update 45 pounds in obsolete notes.
London is magnificent, as it always is at any time of year, despite the weather. The sense of history here is overwhelming, and it seems you don't have to be of British heritage to appreciate it. We heard more Russian accents and language here than any other, and the burgeoning Chinese middle class has also discovered London with a vengeance. Without these visitors, the city would certainly be much less crowded! What we didn't hear was any Australian accents, and not that many Americans, either. Our old Oyster cards had retained their stored value since our last visit, and we used them extensively to get around the city's fabulous underground rail system, the "tube".
Down the escalator to Tower Hill Station on the London Underground.
One hundred years as a school for choirboys this bulding now a youth hostel near St Pauls Cathedral.
Our booked hotel, when we eventually got to check-in to it, was the Hilton Tower Bridge on the south side of the river. It's brand new and a part of a One More Place development in a fanstastic position between London Bridge Station (completely modernised) and the river, directly opposite the Tower of London. This is a spectacularly good location near Tower Bridge but without a view of it. Lots of new and old restaurants nearby, plus some classic old pubs where we'd take a cleansing ale if we could find space inside, no mean feat. Very nearby is the European Union's tallest building, the 97 story Renzo Piano designed Shard (of glass) which was a landmark we came to rely on when finding our way home.
The Tower Bridge visible down the lane, our hotel all lit up even though it's only 4pm.
In near dark at 4pm, the Tower of London and the Tower Bridge.
The Shard, (as seen from More London Place), the top of which often disappeared into the mist.
One of dozens of Christmas Market cabins along the Thames embankment near Borough.
Detail of the imposing Tower of London, first started by William the Conqueror a mere 1000 years ago.
Remnant of the 3km long Londonium wall, built around 200AD, with a statue of Roman Emperor Trajan, same vintage but apparently never near here.
We did visit the spectacular Tate Modern gallery, near Shakespeare's Globe Theatre on South Bank. This modern art gallery which lies in the reinvented Bankside Power Station charges no admission and was very crowded on the damp day of our calling-in. Such a fabulous reuse of a grand historical building is in stark contrast to the NSW Permier's appalling determination to sell off Sydney's Powerhouse Museum to developers! Nearby, in the Borough Market we managed to drink mulled wine and buy delicious fudge and hot nuts. The Borough Market is next door to Southwark Cathedral where the people took refuge from a recent loony's knife attack on London Bridge.
"Fons Americanus" by Kara Walker in the cavernous Turbine Room of the old Bankside Poer Station, now the Tate Modern gallery, features a naked, murdered woman in a hideous "monumental rebuke to the evils of empire".
In very grey conditions, the Millenium pedestrian bridge leading to St Pauls Cathedral.
This atrium in Hays Galleria used to dock and load merchant ships off the Thames River, but it now hosts shops and cafes.
View of The City across the guns of HMS Belfast, a veteran of WW2 and D-Day.
The Shakespeare Globe Theatre on South Bank.
Christmassy barbershop livens up a railway underpass.
We stayed in London across New Year. The city was packed with visitors and the popular tourist spots were uncomfortably congested. London is, no doubt, always busy, and the Festive Season no doubt makes it worse, but we were quite taken aback by just how crowded it was. The purpose of our 5 days here was to overcome jet-lag, so we spent our time doing not much at all, mainly walking around. We did about 10-15,000 steps each day, a good way of banishing flight ills. During our previous visits here, we have stayed in the Westminster area and in Docklands, so this time we chose London Bridge, just over the river from the Tower of London. It was a good choice, a very bustling area (too bustling!) but away from the epicentre of the New Years Eve fireworks nearer the London Eye.
London has managed to brighten what must have been dingy and dangerous railway underpasses, this one near the Borough Market.
A watering-hole near our hotel, the Globe pub sold hot mulled wine, great for a chilly afternoon.
Southwark Cathedral adjacent to the Borough Market and on the south side of London Bridge.
We did tick off a bucket list item by taking a canal cruise from Little Venice, a junction in London's Industrial Revolution canal network named by the poet Robert Browning who lived nearby or maybe by Lord Byron some years earlier. We've walked in this area before, and decided this time to take a ride along the Regents Canal in one of the hundreds of narrowboats which moor in the area. Most boats are private residences or recreation crafts (whose owners pay hefty fees to the Canal and River Trust), but there are many tourism operators taking advantage of the interests of people like us. We did a very pleasant private 2 hour tour in the Lady Aup to Camden Locks and back, enjoying the commentary from skipper Mike, and viewing the mansions of Regents Park, passing London Zoo and through the long tunnel under Edgware Road, and the tiny manually operated locks at Camden. Mike said he was the only operator running that day (between Christmas and New Year) so we were lucky to get the booking.
Wall to wall moored narrow-boats along the canal.
Not much clearance under the Warwick Ave bridge.
About 11am, but the winter sun never gets too high over Little Venice.
Dark and narrow passage under Edgware Road. No tow-path either. Horses walked over the top, and men "legged" the boats through the tunnel.
One of many great mansions overlooking the canal, and Regents Park on the other side.
The Macclesfield Bridge, better known as Blow-Up Bridge after a barge carrying petroleum and gunpowder exploded underneath it in 1874, and demolished it.
The Feng Shang Princess, a top-heavy floating restaurant at a sharp right-angle on the Regents Canal.
In the Hampsted Road Lock at Camden Locks.
Mike, the Lady A skipper, pushes the lock gate into position.
Valves open, the lock fills from upriver.
The now defunct birdhouse at London Zoo.
On New Year's Day, we discovered London's annual NYD parade. This charity fundraiser has an almost 40 year history, and, weirdly, seems to be designed to appeal to American marching bands and TV audiences. In 2010, the route was modified at the behest of US telecasters to better showcase London's highlights. Strange the Brits didn't think of this themselves! Anyway, a million people lined the route through London for this very long parade, and, arriving at the start of the event, we didn't have a hope of getting a vantage point. We scapered up to Oxford Street, crowded enough in its own right, to look at the shops, and watched the highlights on TV later.
Our best view of the New Year's Day Parade in Regent Street.
Fountains were installed in Trafalgar Square in 1841 not for aethetic value but to reduce "the open space available for public gatherings and [thus] the risk of riotous assembly".
Highly decorated bollards block off streets in the City.
The theatre district along Shaftsbury Ave.
Beloved of Monopoly players worldwide, Fenchuch Street Station.
This Pret a Manger outlet, surely the most ubiquitous cafe in London, lies near the Gherkin, a celebrated example of modern London architecture. The Gherkin was intended to be the highest building in Europe until complaints from Heathrow put paid to that.
Tower Bridge, photogenic at any time of day.
Finally, to the splendid St Pancras station for our rebooked Eurostar very fast train under the channel to Paris, Gare du Nord.
St Pancras Station in London's Kings Cross is the pretty terminus of the Eurostar trains to Europe.
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