London: day 7

We ended our very full sight-seeing day at Parliament Square, shown above. But before that we were all over the place, separating, then coming back together, then separating again from our [slightly] diminished happy group of tourists.

First up—after obligatory bus and tube transport—was St. Paul's Cathedral. Since I'd already done its tour and climb in 2008 (you can read about it by following the link), Henry and I opted for Tate Modern, just across the Millenium Bridge, which should have been easy to find. Here's Hal heading for the church entrance:

And here's the view that we spent an inordinate of time searching for, looking back at St. Paul's from the entrance to the bridge. Normally, I've found signs leading one to various landmarks in London to be ubiquitous and helpful, but they let me down here.

However, we eventually found the bridge that used to be wobbly, and the Tate is a can't miss from there. We obviously didn't have as much time there as we'd planned, but it's much too enormous to see in total anyway, so we just picked a gallery and found lots of cool art. Of course the big spider in the entrance area, just where it was in 2008, is a can't miss photo-opp:

After our brief bit of art tourism, we had no trouble meeting up with the St. Paul-ers, since our next stop was Shakespeare's Globe, an attraction I'd inexplicably missed in 2008 that's right next to the museum. It's pretty cool—and next visit I'm determined to see a play there. However this time we only did the tour, and learned lots of neat Shakespearean facts from our entertaining guide:

For the next "attraction" we stayed together, taking an Uber to a restaurant we'd never have picked for lunch, but Hal was keen to try: Manze's Pie and Mash on Tower Road. The big draw? Jellied. Eels.

Nix' expression tells it all, as far as I was concerned!

Hal was determined to savor this traditional British...delicacy. I had one bite, then retreated to my beef pie and mash—which was tasty but much more filling than it needed to be.

Our next stops split us up again. The kids wanted to go to Westminster Abbey and see the graves of some authors they've read, but since I'd already done that [fairly pricey] tour, we opted for something completely different. 

The gorgeous Tower Bridge offers tours of the cool top walkways, and that's something I thought sounded much more interesting—and I wasn't disappointed.

Not only are there great views from up there...

looking upstream

looking downstream

...but of course you get to learn all kinds of interesting facts about the bridge's construction. They do have an elevator, but we opted for the stairs (they have several places to stop and rest, not to mention loos!) since that's where you find most of the informative displays.

One of the coolest things is that about halfway across the walkways, they've installed glass flooring that lets you see what's going on below. Here's Henry taking in what is the somewhat vertiginous view:

They explain how these panels were installed, not too long ago:

But, wait! There's more! On the upstream walkway, above the glass panels, are mirrors, which more than double the fun of this feature!

Henry was not the only tourist who took this kind of picture, lying down on the floor and looking up at the mirror...this was worth the price of admission!

Once you've completed your circuit of the walkways, you can also go into a museum on the south bank that has all kinds of interesting exhibits about the bridge works, how the drawbridge is operated, etc. Here's a particularly handsome bit of machinery:

After our tour it was time to meet up with the kids again, for evensong at the Abbey. Henry, Hal and the girls really enjoyed it, getting to sit right up in the choir section. Our youngest tourist, however, as well as his grandmother with a nagging cough, didn't stick it out. But that gave us time to enjoy the late afternoon sun in Parliament Square (see above picture). Not a bad substitution, indeed. Note again the beautiful weather we were blessed with.

Next up: a real castle! [first of many]