Favorite Fotos: London panoramas

This will be my last post on this blog, for a while at least. I feel like I need to let my London experience percolate a bit before I start on the big project I've always planned for these photos—an addition to my website similar to those I've constructed for some of our previous trips (although it will be much larger).

I've found, though, that I can't bear the thought of not blogging, and so I've started a new blog that I'll tell you more about at the end of this post.

But for now, I thought it would be a fitting finale to the Favorite Fotos (not to mention alliterative!) to display some of my favorite panoramic shots of London, starting with this one from the top (or as close as you can get) of St. Paul's:


You're looking back upstream from here, and can get a good idea of how twisty the Thames is, since you know that the London Eye and the Victoria Tower of the Houses of Parliament are on the bank, and yet don't look like it in this shot.

Looking another direction from the top of St. Paul's shows how very urban London is—buildings, buildings, buildings, as far as the eye can see, with the BT tower standing out as it often does.


Here's another church-top shot, this time from Westminster Cathedral. It's not as tall as St. Paul's, but certainly offers a good view (for a fraction of the price, by the way) of many London landmarks. How many of these can you spot? Victoria Tower, London Eye, St. Paul's, Westminster Abbey, Canary Wharf....


It's pretty amazing to realize that you can see the Eye from so many places around London. Here's a scene that's not too surprising, since you're just a ways upstream from Lambeth Bridge...


.... but here it is peeping over some government buildings visible at the other end of the lake in St. James' Park, which makes for something of an unexpected vista:


London being as flat as it is, you can't really get panoramic views without going up in buildings like St. Paul's and the Cathedral, the only exception I know of being the hilltop in Hampstead Heath Park. Which gives you a different angle altogether, as you can see here:


I decided not to venture further from London than this next photo, rather than include panoramas from my trips to Scotland, Wales, Italy and Germany. But Greenwich is really part of London, and the buildings on the other side of the river certainly are. The closer, older structures are part of the Naval College at Greenwich, and the snazzy new high-rises across the river are Canary Wharf, an obviously booming area (note the large number of construction cranes). The picture was taken from the top of the Naval Observatory hill, where Greenwich Mean Time is recorded—otherwise known as the center of the universe!


And here's a fitting final shot, sunset from the Millennium Footbridge that connects St. Paul's with the Tate Modern and points south. You see part of the Eye from here, too!


So I'm saying good-bye to London posts for a while, but do hope to get to work on my big web project before too much of 2009 is behind us. And I might, from time to time as something reminds me of my time in London and gives me an idea for a post, add to this blog.

In the meantime, though, take a look at my new blog, which I'm calling "Hometown Tourist." [Note that the url is kathyamen.blogspot.com, since hometowntourist was taken as a blogspot label; but I really like the title and didn't want to have to change it.] It will mostly feature scenes of South Texas, but I do have plans for trips to New York City, Tampa, Florida, and Colorado in the works for later in the year, so reflections and photos from other locales I happen to visit will spice things up a bit.

Cheerio! and thanks for reading!