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Even More of the Big Bus Tour...

The day was beautiful as the tour moved throughout the Greater London Area. The sun shone brightly and I was getting a little sunburned. The sky was a lovely azure blue and the clouds were whispy. A person could not have prayed for a more perfect day to see all the tourist attractions from the top of the double-decker bus.
But if that person wanted to pray, St. Paul's Cathedral would be a great place to do so...
The Royal Family hold most of their important marriages, christenings and funerals at Westminster Abbey, but St Paul's was used for the marriage of Charles, Prince of Wales and Lady Diana Spencer. I remember watching the magnificent event on TV with my mom as a kid.
In 2001, Britain's memorial service to honour the victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks was held at the cathedral, attended by the Royal Family and then-U.S. ambassador William Farish.
The cathedral is open to the public, with a small charge for non-worshipping visitors. In 2000, the cathedral began a major restoration program to celebrate the 300th anniversary of its opening. A ceremony to celebrate the anniversary was directed by Patrick Garland, an actor, writer, and a director of British theatre, television, and film.
The restoration program is expected to cost £40 million, and involves repair and cleaning of the building, and improvement of visitor facilities, such as accessibility for the disabled, and provision of additional educational facilities. It is scheduled for completion in 2008.
A ceremony to celebrate the anniversary was directed by Patrick Garland, an actor, writer, and a director of British theatre, television, and film.

The restoration program is expected to cost £40 million, and involves repair and cleaning of the building, and improvement of visitor facilities, such as accessibility for the disabled, and provision of additional educational facilities.
The Governor and Company of the Bank of England is the central bank of the United Kingdom, and as such it convenes the Monetary Policy Committee, which is responsible for the monetary policy of the country. It was established in 1694 to act as the English Government's banker, a role which it still fulfils today. The Bank's building is located in the City of London, on Threadneedle Street, and hence it is sometimes known as "The Old Lady of Threadneedle Street."
As the tour rolled on, we soon crossed London Bridge.
London Bridge spans the River Thames, between the City of London and Southwark. London's original bridge made this one of the most famous bridge emplacements in the world. It was the only bridge over the Thames in London until Westminster Bridge was opened in 1750.
A bridge has existed at or near the present site for nearly 2000 years. The first bridge across the Thames in the London area was built by the Romans on the present site around 60 AD and was made of wood. The location was most likely chosen as a bridgeable spot which still had deepwater access to the sea.

The official opening took place on August 1, 1831; King William IV and Queen Adelaide attended a banquet in a pavilion erected on the bridge. The HMS Beagle was the first ship to pass under it. It was widened in 1902-4 from 52 to 65 feet (16 to 20 m) in an attempt to combat London's chronic traffic congestion. Unfortunately, this proved too much for the bridge's foundations; it was subsequently discovered that the bridge was sinking an inch every eight years.
By 1924, the east side of the bridge was some three to four inches lower than the west side; it soon became apparent that the old bridge would have to be removed and replaced with a more modern one.
In April 1968, Rennie's bridge was sold to the American entrepreneur Robert P. McCulloch of McCulloch Oil for US $2,460,000. Tower Bridge is sometimes mistakenly referred to as London Bridge and a popular urban legend is that he mistakenly believed that he was buying the more impressive Tower Bridge, although McCulloch denied this. The bridge was dismantled, and each stone was numbered.
Everything was shipped 10,000 miles to Long Beach, California, and then trucked to Lake Havasu City. Reconstruction began on September 23, 1968, with a ceremony including the Lord Mayor of London, who laid the cornerstone. On October 10, 1971, the bridge was dedicated.

The cost of £4 million was met entirely by the City of London's Bridge House Estates. The current bridge was built in the same location as Rennie's bridge, which was carefully demolished piece by piece as the new bridge was built, so the bridge would remain in use throughout.
In 1984 the British warship HMS Jupiter collided with London Bridge causing significant damage to both ship and bridge. On Remembrance Day 2004, various London bridges were furnished with red lighting as part of a night-time flight along the river by wartime aircraft. London Bridge was the one bridge not subsequently stripped of the illuminations, which are switched on at night. The bridge is designated as part of the A3 road, maintained by the Greater London Authority.
On the south side of the bridge is Southwark Cathedral and London Bridge station. On the north side is the Monument to the Great Fire of London.

The Monument to the Great Fire of London, more commonly known as The Monument, is a 61-metre (202-foot) tall stone Roman doric column built of Portland stone topped with a gilded urn of fire. It was designed by Christopher Wren and Robert Hooke. At the time of construction (between 1671 and 1677) it was (and still is) the tallest freestanding stone column in the world.Wren and Hooke built the Monument to double as a scientific instrument. It has a central shaft meant for use as a Zenith Telescope (an instrument adapted for the measurement of small differences of zenith distance, and used in the determination of astronomic latitude) and for use in gravity and pendulum experiments. The shaft connects to an underground laboratory for observers to work (accessible from the present-day ticket booth). A hinged lid in the urn covers the opening to the shaft. The steps in the shaft of the tower are all exactly 6 inches high, allowing them to be used for accurate barometric pressure studies. The Monument is located at the junction of Monument Street and Fish Street Hill.

Its 61-metre height marks the monument's distance to the site of Thomas Farynor, the king's baker's shop in Pudding Lane, where the fire began. If the column were laid down the urn would be in the exact spot where the fire began.
Three sides of the base of the monument carry inscriptions in Latin. The one on the north describes how the fire started, how much damage it caused, and how the fire was extinguished. The one on the south side describes actions taken by Charles II following the fire. The one on the east describes how the monument was started and brought to perfection, and under which mayors. In 1681 the words "but Popish frenzy, which wrought such horrors, is not yet quenched" were added to the end of the inscription.
The west side of the base of the Monument displays an emblematical sculpture, by Caius Gabriel Cibber, in alto and bas relief, of the destruction of the City; with King Charles II, and his brother, James, the Duke of York (later James II) surrounded by Liberty, Architecture, and Science, giving directions for its restoration.
It is possible to reach the top of the monument by climbing up a narrow winding staircase of 311 steps. A cage was added at the top of the Monument in the mid-19th century to prevent people jumping off, after six people committed suicide between 1788 and 1842.

Deep in the heart of London, buried beneath the paving stones of historic Southwark, lies the world's most chillingly famous horror attraction. The London Dungeon has become one of London's most popular tourist attractions despite the fact that it is filled with over forty of the most grisly exhibitions and examples of atrocities from British and European history.
The museum appeals to people's morbid curiosity, though be warned - it is not to be recommended to those with a nervous disposition or squeamish nature! You get the best of both worlds at the London Dungeon; a token dash of history to make it all feel like an educational experience, but more importantly full, fascinating and graphic details of the barbarism of the past. The London Dungeon brings more than 2,000 years of gruesomely authentic history vividly back to life ... and death.
As you delve into the darkest chapters of the grim and bloody past, recreated in all its dreadful detail, remember: everything you experience really happened. A warning - in the Dungeon's dark catacombs it always pays to keep your wits about you... some of the 'exhibits' have an unnerving habit of coming back to life... The place has a reputation of being haunted, though none of the activities portrayed inside actually happened there. The museum has been brought right up to date with the latest in multi-media displays and modern equipment to aid visual and audio displays.

The bus rolled along and soon past over the Tower Bridge, which is named after its two impressive towers. Wolfe Barry and Horace Jones, the royal architects who also designed the Smithfield Market, designed it.
Tower Bridge was constructed from more than eleven thousand tons of steel and granite blocks that were transported from Cornwall. The mechanism to raise the bridge was originally powered by steam, although fossil fuels are now used.
The central section of the bridge can be raised to allow large vessels to pass, though in recent times it is not usually raised more than five times a week. Tower Bridge was completed in 1894 after only eight years in construction. It was the Corporation of London who decided in 1876 that London Bridge was no longer sufficient to cope with the massive amount of traffic that Victorian London required.
The problem the commission faced was that the bridge would need to allow water traffic through and so fifty variations of the current design were submitted. These initial designs can be seen at the Tower Bridge Exhibition. The Tower Bridge Exhibition has been established for over twenty years and is housed within the structure of the bridge itself.
As the Tour passed over the Tower Bridge, it offered a great view London's City Hall and the Swiss Royal Embassy Tower.

The Swiss Embassy is nicknamed "The Gherkin" because of its resemblance to a pickle standing on its end.
City Hall in London is the headquarters of the Greater London Authority and the Mayor of London. It stands on the south bank of the River Thames, in the More London development by Tower Bridge. Designed by Norman Foster, it opened in July 2002. The building has an unusual bulbous shape, intended to reduce the building's surface area and thus improve energy efficiency. It has been compared variously to Darth Vader's helmet, a misshapen egg, or a motorcycle helmet.
London Mayor Ken Livingstone referred to it as a "glass testicle". Its designers reportedly saw the building as a giant sphere hanging over the Thames, but opted for a more conventionally rooted building instead. The building has no front or back on conventional terms but derives its shape from a modified sphere.
City Hall was constructed on a site formerly occupied by wharves serving the Pool of London. The building does not belong to the GLA but is leased under a 25-year rent. It forms part of a larger development called More London, including offices and shops. In a hilariously wasteful government way, the city spent over £2 million to come up with a name for the futuristic looking building, but in the end it was just called City Hall. Next to City Hall is a sunken amphitheatre called The Scoop, which is used in the summer months for open-air performances; it is not, however, part of the GLA's jurisdiction.

A 500 metre (1,640 foot) helical walkway ascends the full height of the building. At the top of the ten-story building is an exhibition and meeting space called "London's Living Room," with an open viewing deck which is occasionally open to the public. The walkway provides views of the interior of the building, and is intended to symbolise transparency; a similar device was used by Foster in his design for the rebuilt Reichstag in Germany. In 2006 it was announced that Solar photovoltaic cells would be fitted to the building by the London Climate Change Agency.
City Hall is not in the City of London, whose headquarters is in the Guildhall north of the Thames. The predecessors of the Greater London Authority, namely the Greater London Council and the London County Council, had their headquarters at County Hall, upstream on the South Bank. Although County Hall's old council chamber is still intact, the building is unavailable for use by the GLA due to the building's conversion into, amongst other things, a luxury hotel, amusement arcade and aquarium.

On the opposite side of the Tower Bridge is the Tower of London. The Tower of London was built upon command of William the Conqueror in 1078. It was never completed in his lifetime and work continued under the watch of William II. The first sections of the tower to be completed were the White Tower and the Norman Church, which remains the oldest church in London today. Between the 11th and the 15th Century the Garrison was rebuilt and enlarged. The inner wall was constructed by order of King Henry VII and Edward I built Traitors Gate and the St. Thomas Tower.
Located on the North bank of the River Thames- the Tower of London strikes a formidable presence over modern London. Now the home of the Crown Jewels, the Tower of London has had a varied and macabre past. Over the last ten centuries the tower has been a palace, a prison, an arsenal, and even a zoo.
Free tours are run by the Yeoman Warders and among the exhibitions is an insight into the creation of Royal crowns, located in the Martin tower. The considerable dry moat that surrounds the tower is more than a kilometer in circumference and was created as a defense mechanism. The Tower of London is one of the world's major tourist attractions; today, over 2.5 million visitors a year come to discover its long and eventful history, its buildings, ceremonies and traditions, and to get a glimpse of the world famous Crown Jewels. I hopped off the bus and checked out the Tower of London.

The next part of my journey was to take place on water. I made made my way to the boats that take visitors on a short tour of the River Thames.

Next Installment: Boating On The River Thames

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