Bankside and Southwark

I went on the Bankside and Southwark walk the day after I completely the South bank walk. It was neat to see the continuation of the river and some more sites. It was another beautiful, sunny day and quite chilly. I really enjoyed seeing many of the sites along the way. It was neat to see the reconstruction of the globe theatre. Although it was not the original it was still neat to see what it may have looked like. It was interesting to hear about the history of that area and how often the theatres were around the sketchy red light districts because the city authorities didn't like having those activities around (why they were located on the south bank of the Thames). I also really enjoyed seeing the millenium bridge from the 6th Harry Potter movie. Emily and Katie had fun reenacting a wizard duel in front of it. I also enjoyed going by the Borough market where we bought some really good fresh baked breads. We passed the HMS Belfast, a huge cruiser ship of the Royal Navy. It was used I believe during WWII, since it was built in 1938 but is now a museum. I really love WWII history and studying it, so it was fascinating to pass this enormous ship and make some connections with what I love learning about in history. However, I think my favorite part of the walk was crossing over the Tower Bridge just because it's such an iconic part of London. The picture below is of our group doing a jumping picture in front of the bridge. We got a lot of strange looks, but I thought the finished product was worth it. I really enjoyed the walk and had a lot of fun exploring more of London.

Lambeth and the South Bank

This walk was very pretty and had a lot of spectacular views. As the group leader I led Paige, Emily and Jaynann from Waterloo tube station toward the south bank of the Thames. Before we did get to the river we were able to see the Museum of Garden History at The St Mary-at-Lambeth Churchyard. When we were there I saw the gardener pulling weeds in some of the flower beds. Right not there weren't many flowers, but the book shows a gorgeous picture of the garden in spring/summer time. It would've been neat to see the garden then. After passing through that garden we crossed the street and found ourselves at the south bank of the Thames. The view was wonderful. We saw the side view of Parliament and Big Ben. Since the sky was so blue today the view was great! We took a lot of pictures and continued along the bank.

 Unfortunately about 1/2 way down the river 2 police officers stopped us saying that the way we were going was closed because there was a 'suspect' lose. Emily thought he said someone had been shot down, and freaked out a bit and then some guy asked us if someone really got shot. It was kinda funny. So we went and asked the police what the best way was to get to where we needed to go to the walk. They told us to go the way we had come. But, we didn't want to back track so we started heading another way. By the time we got to where the 'incident' had happened (by the London eye and Westminster bridge) the police were taking down the tape and packing up. So, we were able to get back onto the south bank walk and continue our way toward the eye and the temple hill tube station. That was a fun adventure. Here's the proof of the police officers:

here's the police. They were just getting ready to leave. I don't know if they ever caught the suspect...

We passed under the London eye and read in the book that it had been made for the millennial celebration and was supposed to be only temporary. But it was so popular that they decided to keep it there permanently. Pretty cool. We also passed by the National Theatre and a part underneath it had been turned into this massive graffiti zone with a lot of cool graffiti 'art'. Emily took a pretty gangster picture here.

After that we crossed the Waterloo bridge and went into the Sommerset house and read about the history for that. It was super pretty to walk through the courtyard where there is a temporary ice skating rink put up. We made it to the temple tube stop and came home after that.

One thing that would be nice for those thinking about taking this walk is to go on a clear day, since the views one sees are gorgeous.

Bloomsbury Walk

I found this walk very enjoyable. We started out from the tube station and walked to the British Museum. Our group stopped there for a few hours to look at some of the exhibits. I really enjoyed seeing the old bronze weapons and armor in some of the exhibits. One of the coolest exhibits was that of a bog body. It was crazy to see how the chemicals in the bog preserved the body so well that it was still very easy to tell it was a body. Jaynann and I also went to the part of the museum that had some of the Egyptian exhibits with the mummies. We were able to see how the bodies were preserved through the dryness of the desert. It was neat to see the different ways that preserved both bodies.

After leaving the museum we continued on our walk through Russell Square Gardens. The garden was very open and green with a beautiful fountain in the middle. It also had this cute cafe that we stopped at to get some Paninis for lunch. Right across from Russell Square Gardens we saw Hotel Russell. It was this really neat looking building with these pretty vivid turquoise parapets. We saw Brunswick Square where many famous writers used to share a house. Virginia Woolf was among one of those writers. I thought that was neat because I was able to learn a lot about Virginia Woolf last semester in one of my English classes and I did a presentation on her. 

One of the things that I really enjoyed about the walk was going through St. George's park. It was neat seeing all the old tombstones from when it was a cemetery. I really enjoyed how green and beautiful the park was. We saw a group of people doing laps around the park. When we asked them what they were running for they said for, "healthy living". That made me smile. Our group got a picture taken here and we met a new friend named Piper. He was this really cute white puppy. 

I also really enjoyed walking past all of the hospitals and the children's hospital. We passed many children that were going to that hospital and even a leukemia clinic The hospital reminded me of Primary Children's or Shriners in Salt Lake that I often visited while growing up. So, it made my feel for those kids that were going into the hospital. In the book it mentions that in 1852 since there was no hospital places for children about 20,000 kids were dying under the age of 10 each year. That made me so sad and grateful for the hospitals, doctors and medicine that we have today.

I almost forgot Charles Dickens' house. That was pretty neat to see too.

I really enjoyed this walk and the places we got to see that I probably wouldn't have seen otherwise.

The City (East) Walk

For this walk my group and I walked through one of the older parts of London. It also took us through the center of financial London. We were able to see Lloyd's, the stock exchange and the Royal exchange. The walk had many turns, left and right, through small alleys and big main streets. One of my favorite parts of the walk was going through the small alley ways because they reminded me of Diagon Alley from the Harry Potter books. I especially liked going into St. Michael's Alley and seeing the old church yard there, then going through through the maze of small passages in order to get back to the main road. Another part I enjoyed was going to Guildhall yard. It was so open and the stone work used made the yard very light and open. This is where my picture will come from. The book says that the yard was destroyed by the Great London Fire and also by the Blitz. I would not have even realized that by just looking at it, but it's neat to learn the history of the areas from the book. Overall the walk was super fun and enjoyable. We never really got lost, maybe confused for a second, but not lost. Jaynann was a great leader. Anyway, here's a picture of Jaynann and I in front of Guildhall yard:

It was great seeing that old part of London and exploring the old parts of town.