For our last full day in London we had a few final tourist things to do.
First up was the Emirates Air Line. This is 10-seat gondola over the Thames from the O2 Arena at North Greenwich to near Royal Victoria on the DLR. The ride is pretty quick but gives a good view of this part of London. There are cranes everywhere as the development of new apartments and high-rises continues a pace.
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| Looking down the runway of London City Airport |
Rather than taking an immediate return journey, we caught the DLR to Pontoon Bridge. This involved traveling to the next stop (Canning Town) and then back on the other line to Pontoon Dock. The reason was that I wanted to have a close-up look at the Thames Barrier. I had determined that they raise and lower the gates once a month (just to make sure they still work) and today was the day! Surprisingly, there is a really nice
park next to the barrier which is one of London's hidden gems. Designed as part of a competition (and completed in November 2000) it is a really nice peaceful area. It is only let down by lack of maintenance and some of the 'features' are a bit tatty now. The segments of the barrier were duly raised one at a time. I took a few photos to show the various states of one central segment - the movement is almost imperceptible. Not exactly exciting but well worth the effort of getting there.
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| Middle section on the way up |
Back on the DLR we returned to the Emirates Air Line and traveled back to North Greenwich. We then had a lunch stop at a Mexican place near the O2 Arena and, after lunch, had a walk around inside the O2 building itself. It looks like a big tent but is really, really big. Just the half we had access to has something like 27 restaurants plus other shops. There are also a few cinema complexes and an Elvis exhibition. All this just around the edge. The arena itself is in the middle and can host concerts, ice hockey games, you name it.
The only thing left on our list was the Museum of London at the Barbican. This required a complicated tube ride and we finally got there at around 3pm. Thinking it was open until 6pm we started looking at the exhibits from the beginning (pre-roman that is). Suddenly, at 4:45pm they announced it would be closing at 5pm! Damn, the signage said 6pm but maybe they are in Winter mode now. Feeling somewhat weary from our day's excursions, we headed back to the Travelodge to pack. Tomorrow we catch a Virgin train from Euston to Manchester (at 11am) arriving at 1pm. Our Emirates flight is at 9pm so we will have plenty of time to catch up with Julie and Richard and get to the airport.
