I didn’t wake up quite as early as I hoped this morning.
I went to breakfast and made myself a bacon, egg and toast sandwich. I also ate a large bowl of coco puffs.
I left the hotel around 11 AM. There was a security guard hired by the Formula E event (the race is next weekend) that made me walk back to the hotel, take the lift to the 2nd floor and walk around because no one can use the stairs that put me in the exact same location. Obviously logic doesn’t exist here. I took the DLR one stop and took the Elizabeth line to Tottenham Court Road Station. I walked to the British museum.
Late last night I had booked tickets (free) for the British museum. I had already been there, but I do enjoy it with the Assyrian sculptures and the Rosetta stone. I learned this time that Rosetta = Rashid (like Port Rashid at the end of the Suez canal).
The museum was a bit warm and some sections were closed off due to the temperature.
After the museum I decided to take some pictures of the London Eye, Westminster Palace and the Elizabeth Tower (aka Big Ben), so I took the tube from Tottenham Court Road to Embankment. I was thirsty so I found a Sainsbury local grocery store nearby the underground station and bought a 2 liter bottle of Dr Pepper (it was only 1.5 pounds sterling), some prosciutto and a baguette. The prosciutto was delicious, the baguette was disappointing, not up to the Carrefour standard I am used to. I sat and had my picnic in the Embankment park where there was an orchestra playing. I threw away half of the baguette as it really wasn’t that good.
As I was walking along the embankment I found a pair of large sphinxes and a large Egyptian obelisk. There were some marks in the sphinx and base of the obelisk as it was damaged by shrapnel from a German WWI bomb.
A couple of more photos along the embankment.
I found a nice place to take some pictures of the London Eye nest to the Tattershall Castle. I also set up my DJI Osmo Pocket 2 to take a time lapse video as I was taking pictures with the real camera.
From here I walked along the embankment over to Palace of Westminster. I had to wait a while to get good lighting to take a picture of Parliament as the sun was facing me.
After taking plenty of pictures I decided to move to Tower Bridge to take some daytime photos of Tower Bridge. I considered walking, but took the tube from Westminster to London Bridge. I had to walk across London Bridge and I arrived at 6:30 PM and the bridge lift time was at 7 PM.
A small sailing boat (tall mast) approached Tower Bridge and I recoded it opening. I decided to stay for the next lift as well. I recorded a time lapse video with my pocket camera and took long exposure stills of the bridge opening to let the sailboat back through after picking up passengers. I also got a picture of an Emirates A380 flying over Tower Bridge.
As it was still daylight (approaching the magic hour) I decided to walk around the Tower of London to see the SuperBloom… Well it wasn’t very super to me. I am glad I could see what I could around the outside, and I didn’t need to pay for a ticket as I can’t see even how it would be worth a couple of pounds sterling. All of the flowers seemed to be wildflowers.
Now that it was cooler I decided to walk along the Thames river to the London Eye to take some night pictures.
I also walked to the Elizabeth Tower to take night pictures of it. I managed to get a couple of good shots.
By this time it was nearly 11:30 and time to get back to the hotel. I took the tube from Westminster to Canning Town and the DLR to Prince Regent. No problems getting past security tonight, I just walked to the hotel.
Today’s timeline:
