The day of 3 London Walks

London Voyage - Sunday, October 6, 2002

Was I ambitious or what? Today I decided to do no less than THREE London Walks. The first, in the morning, was called the London Tour - Westminster. While I was initially thinking that I might be doing a rehash of yesterday's Westminster walk, I did notice that this walk was only in the Parliament area for a little, and then left to go to Buckingham Palace, St. James' Palace, and finally to Trafalgar Square, so there was very little concern for too much overlap. Our guide Tom led us through all of the great sights in the most recognizable part of London - and after seeing Parliament and Westminster Abbey again, we headed down to Buck House for the Changing of the Guard. We didn't stand where the throngs were - instead Tom showed us the 'insider's' place to stand, so that you get a front row view of both the band and guard marching to the palace. Indeed, we could have touched the guards, while the rest of the yahoos had to settle for craning their necks over each other just to see what amounts to little, as the changing of the guard is symbolic and nothing really exciting happens. So you can see the pictures below of the guard coming right by us. Also, we made it to St. James' Palace, which is where the British government has put the one guard that must face the public. It's the one spot you can take a picture with the guard, so needless to say, it's a little packed with tourists. But you know I took my picture!

The London Tour - Westminster

A brief pause to go to McDonald's (yay!!!!!!) and get off my feet. Then it was time for my next walk, The London Tour - Square Mile. During this walk, we started at the Tower of London and worked our way through the oldest part of London, the square mile area that had been the site of the Roman city Londinium. Anyways, this turned out not to be the most exciting tour, but it was still worthwhile in seeing a part of the city that I wouldn't have wandered on my own. We explored a church, the downtown business district, the banking district, the mayor's house, and finally made our way to where the Millennium Bridge was located. It led across to the Tate Modern art gallery, which I attempted to visit. Unfortunately, no sooner had I stepped in did the fire alarm go off. So no modern art gallery for me that day, nor later in the week either. Ah well. My feet hurt, and there was enough time to go back to the hotel, drop off my stuff, and pick up some dinner.

The London Tour - Old Square Mile

St Paul's from bridge

The bridges of the Thames

So night fell and I went on my way to the third London Walk of the day. This was one I had been looking forward to, the Haunts of Jack the Ripper walk. On Sunday, the walk is led by one of the experts on Jack the Ripper lore. Well, apparently everyone else thought to take this walk as well. There were at least 300 people on the walk - typically on a walk, there may be close to 25 people. So this was quite a lot. I met up with Eric and Sheri, and we managed to stay together and hang out as we went along with the mob. The tour was interesting, minus the distractions of being in a mob, and eventually we ended up in the East End section of London, still not a good part of town. At the conclusion of the tour, we went to the Ten Bells pub, and had a few pints, talked, and had another good time. Anyways, I planned to meet up with Eric & Sheri again the next night for another London Walk, this time with Alan.

Alas, I did not take my camera on this tour as I didn't think I'd find much in the dark to take pictures of. For the most part, I was right, but I do regret not taking pictures of some of the things, like the Ten Bells pub and locations where Jack did some of his naughty business. I've given a link to a site that has lots of pictures of modern-day East End London and the sites of Ripper lore - http://johnno.casebook.org/eastend.html. I stole their picture of the Ten Bells pub so you can see where I drank that night. I was at the table right at the window with the piece of paper stuck in it halfway up. Exciting, yes?

The Jack the Ripper evening in London

Click here to see what happened the next day!

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