London Day Out Every year when I renew my train season ticket, South West Trains send me some complimentary tickets for free weekend travel on their network. And every year we say we must to something with those tickets and then never get round to it.We decided to buck that trend and spend a day in London seeing/doing some of the stuff I never bother doing as I’m there five days a week already.
O2 Having enjoyed a very nice 1st class journey to Waterloo, we jumped on the Jubilee Line for the ten minute trip to North Greenwich, which is where the O2 lives.Approaching the O2, we could see this group of people having a go on the walking over the O2 experience.
Inside the O2 There were quite a lot of people around inside the O2 as we had managed to synchronise our arrival with the start of Ant and Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway. Unfortunately (!) we weren’t allowed in as we weren’t being accompanied by any 8-12 year-olds.
Post Thing So we had a bit of a look around and I took a few photos. This is one of the massive yellow post things that holds up the roof. They appear to be quite similar in form to the posts that hold up the roof at Heathrow’s new(ish) terminal 5.I think it would be fair to say that if you’re not going to the O2 to watch a show of some sort, going to the O2 is a pretty pointless exercise. Unless you’re hungry. There are loads of restaurants. But they’re all those chain ones that I generally try to avoid.
Waggamamma's Having said that I generally try to avoid chain restaurants, I do rather enjoy the occasional visit to Waggamamma’s. As it appears that every chain restaurant in existence has an outlet at the O2, they do indeed have a Waggamamma’s.This is a bottle of beer that I ordered in Waggamamma’s. I took a photo of it to remind myself that it cost £11.95!!! It was quite a big bottle of beer, but nevertheless, it serves as a reminder that you should always have a glance at the numbers next to the things you’re ordering, just in case.
Cablecar Having finished entertaining ourselves at the O2, we walked the short distance to the new(ish) cablecar over the Thames. Being a fan of cablecars (because they generally go to and from very interesting places), we thought we might have a go on that. However, there was a bit of a queue and it didn’t seem to go anywhere that we wanted to be. So we decided to have a walk along the Thames-side path instead.
O2 The first mile-or-so of the path loops around the back of the O2. The views of the O2 from the river side are much better than from its “front”, but they have cunningly/annoyingly put up a large and dense fence that is pretty much impossible to take photos through using a conventional camera. However, it is just about possible to take photos through it using the tiny lens on a phone’s camera.Unfortunately the lens on my phone camera isn’t very wide-angle, so I couldn’t actually get most of the O2 in from this close up. Doh!
Canary Wharf Across the river, there are very nice views of Canary Wharf.
Canary Wharf A close-up view of the buildings at Canary Wharf.
Skyline Ominous looking clouds are closing in from the west, but we’re not worried. The weather radar app on my phone says there is no rain in those clouds.
Greenwich Despite the fact that Greenwich itself probably isn’t more than a mile or so from the O2, the winding nature of the Thames at this point means that it’s actually taken ages to walk here down the Thames-side path. Also, most of the path between the O2 and Greenwich is grim. In twenty years it’ll probably have been redeveloped to the point of being quite nice. But for now, avoid.Still, once you’ve made it as far as Greenwich, there’s a nice view of the Greenwich Maritime Museum from the riverside path.
Greenwich It’s high tide and you can see that the river has come within inches of engulfing the riverside path.We were thinking of getting the Thames Clipper from Greenwich to London Bridge, but when we arrive at the jetty/dock, there is a massive queue of people waiting to board. So we walk through the foot tunnel to Island Gardens on the Isle of Dogs and board the Docklands Light Railway to Bank. From there, it’s a short walk across London Bridge to...
The Shard It’s been here for a couple of years now and I see it every day on my way to and from work, so I thought it was about time I had a trip up to their viewing deck.It’s £30 to go up if you just turn up (£25 if you book in advance). As we were going to get fleeced anyway, we thought we could just visit one of the bars/restaurants instead. No such luck. Access to the bars was by reservation only and there were none. So, viewing deck it is then.
Viewing Deck Getting up there is a very slick process. Because you have to have a ticket and they limit the number of tickets available in each time slot, minimal queuing is required. A lift departs for the 33rd floor every 60 seconds or so. At the 33rd floor you switch to another lift that takes you to the 68th floor (I think). There is no queuing here as you simply get out of one lift and walk straight into the next one. Then it’s up a flight of stairs to the viewing deck, which you can see in the photo.You can also walk up another three flights of stairs to the partially open viewing deck on the 72nd floor.Here are some people admiring the view from the 69th floor.
West The view looking west towards the London Eye, which is fairly clearly visible in the distance.
North-West St Paul’s is just about visible in the middle of this photo.
North Looking towards the City. London Bridge is visible in the bottom left. Lots of well known buildings in the distance.
North-East The Tower of London with its ever-growing population of poppies is visible on the right. HMS Belfast is in the bottom right.
Tower of London A better view of the poppies at the Tower of London.
Tower Bridge Not much to say about that.
Up This is the view looking up from the open bit of the upper observation deck. I guess they would be floors 73 to 77.
South The view south. There’s pretty much nothing at all that I recognise in there.
AGH I can see my desk from here! Well nearly.
Waterloo Whilst the Shard has views in abundance, what it doesn’t have much of is places to sit (which is to be expected as they don’t want to encourage people to hang about up there all day). So we head off in search of somewhere to sit and have a pint. The Mug House underneath London Bridge proves to be a comfortable spot to sit for an hour whist we listen to their live music fellow strum away pleasantly on his guitar. Their triple-cooked chips are most excellent too.Afterwards we head back to Waterloo to catch the train home. We had 25 minutes to spare and the station was pretty deserted, so we pop into the Cabin for a quick drink. During the week, when I’m passing through Waterloo on my way home, this place is rammed. But at 8pm on a Saturday evening, we have a wide selection of seating choices. This is the view from our table.
The Cabin The Cabin seems to be mainly a wine bar, but they do have a small selection of bottled beers (and they only had Peroni on tap when we were there).This Steph Weiss was something I’d not tried or even seen before, but it turned out to be very pleasant.Then it was time to get the train home again (in comfy 1st class again - it’s nice to know there are at least some perks to buying a mind blowingly expensive annual season ticket).And so ended a rather nice day out in London. We may have to do this again sometime.