As I hinted yesterday, that was not the last full
day. We had forgotten that our flight did not leave until late in the evening,
so we had a “bonus” full day. Given our state of weariness we opted to have an
easy day focusing on the Tate Modern art gallery. We had difficulty finding it
on the London map, so asked for help from the concierge. She unerringly pointed
us to a location on the map very close to where we thought it was – on the
other side of the Thames from the Tate Britain. However, I was troubled by the fact that
it said “Lambeth Palace” at that location. Undeterred we made our way there on
the Underground. Once back on the surface Joan asked a passing cyclist for
direction: forty minutes on foot that-away. He then pointed to the correct
location on the map, giving us a d’oh moment. Back in the Underground, helpful
staff advised the most efficient route to the nearest station at London Bridge.
This was fortuitous because we also got to see
Southwark Cathedral – one of the oldest in the city.
From there we did a quick
swing through the Borough Markets and then along the Thames past the Globe
Theatre and on to the Tate.
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| The Golden Hind |
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| The Globe Theatre |
The Modern is on the Thames not far from Tower
Bridge and right at the Millenium Bridge.
The gallery itself is housed in a converted power
station, so not particularly attractive on the outside. Most of what was the
turbine hall is still a vast empty space – quite impressive. The galleries are
in what were workshops and offices. There was the odd interesting work, but
most of what was on display did not speak to our tastes. We wanted to eat lunch
in the restaurant in the Tate as a treat, but the wait was too long. We had a
drink at the bar instead, enjoying the great view on the other side, including
St Paul’s cathedral.
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| view from the Tate 6th floor |
After lunch in the café we hopped across on the
Millenium Bridge (foot- and cycle traffic only) and on to St Paul’s where we
looked in briefly.
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| The Shard - tallest building in Europe |
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| Tower Bridge at back |
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| a bloke paints chewing gum blobs on the Millenium Bridge |
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| St Paul's from a shopping mall |
We then meandered around the streets in the general
direction of the Bank, the Underground station for our route home.
On the way we stumbled across the Guild Hall, a
complex of buildings around a plaza, with its own church in one corner – St Lawrence
Jewry – an intriguing name. Part of the complex was an art gallery so just had
to see that, especially as it was free.
Museum
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| a very large painting celebrating victory over the Spanish at Gibraltar |
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| Victoria on throne in House of Lords 1838 |
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| you feel the front figures will touch yout |
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| Opening ceremony of Tower Bridge |
Church of St Lawrence Jewry
Further on we were attracted by a gilded figure on
a dome atop a massive building. After walking around the side to the main,
rather unobtrusive entrance, we daringly popped inside. The porters were only
too willingly to accommodate the rubber-necking tourist and allowed us to have
a quick of the entrance hall. I naïvely asked them what this building was: Sir,
this is the Bank of England! Oh.
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| doors on B of E |
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| floor mosaic in B of E |
Across the street was the Royal Exchange, emphasis
on “was”. It now houses upmarket fashion shops and bars. Attractive inside and
out. On the square was a statue (this is for Andy) of the man who first built a
machine for boring the deep Underground tunnels.
Our return to the hotel was uneventful, as was the taxi
trip to Paddington and the Heathrow Express to the airport. We got there very
early, so had quite a good meal in one of the eateries there. We had more cash left
over than expected and wanted to buy something, but could not find anything we
wanted to splurge on. That surely is a sign of getting old.
As on the outbound leg, the flight to Hong Kong was
awful. I commiserated with the tall man my height in the seat in front of me while
we were both standing around at the back of the aircraft to relieve the agony.
He was well-travelled and agreed that Virgin Atlantic’s seats on this plane
were the worst he had ever experienced. Fortunately for us, VA had decided
about four months ago to cease all flights into Australia as of June, so they
re-booked us on Qantas for the leg home from HK. That worked very well for us, not
least because we had used up inactive frequent-flyer points to upgrade to cattle
class exit row seats.
Total flight time was 21.5 hours and we landed
early at 6:50am. It had escaped us that this is peak hour so we had to stand
all the way to St Leonards.
We got home at about 9:30am to be greeted by a
driveway full of leaves, and mould on a number of surfaces, but with the hot
water turned back on and a bottle of fresh milk in the fridge – thanks Roland!
Part way through our recovery nap, we were roused
by a phone call from a sub-continent person allegedly from “Telstra Technical
Department”, advising that out Internet connection was being terminated due to misuse. I
used semi-polite choice words to tell him what I thought of that, given that
this was not our ISP and we had not used our computers for seven weeks.
It’s good to be back, but it’s cold here!
