Thames River Cruise (north shore)

After work on Monday, I went back to the hotel and had lunch at a really nice Italian restaurant called Zizzi's in St. Catherine's Docks.  It's a little weird, I have dinner at midnight at work when I wake, and then have breakfast at about 6am, followed by lunch before I go to bed.

After lunch, I decided to take a Thames River water taxi down to the dock at Westminster, get out and walk around a bit, and then head back to go to bed.  I've started to get a cold, and didn't want to do a lot of walking, and hoped to get a good night's sleep.

The dock at St. Catherine's pier is right in front of the hotel, and the water taxi (more like a ferry, really) leaves every 30 minutes.  We pass under the Tower Bridge heading west (I'll spare you another photo of the bridge) and then cruise by the Tower of London.  Here's the "White Tower" as seen from the river:

Further to the west, we pass the Gherkin (shown previously), and the Monument.  The Monument is a 202ft tall monument to the Great Fire of 1666 and was built by Sir Christopher Wren (I'll have lots to say about him in a future post).  You can actually climb to the top of the Monument and get some great views of the city.  I plan to do this some day soon.

After this, we can get a glimpse of the dome of St. Paul's Cathedral, but I couldn't get a decent photo and I plan to visit the Cathedral later, so I'll leave it out for now.

Next, we come across "Cleopatra's Needle".  The needle is an ancient Egyptian obelisk, nearly 3500 years old, that was gifted to England in 1819 by the ruler of Egypt in commemoration of victories over Napoleon's armies in Alexandria.  The needle actually has nothing to do with Cleopatra (having been in existence for nearly 1000 years before she came along.  The needle wasn't actually transported to England until 1877 because of the enormous cost and difficulty of moving it.  The obelisk is 21m tall and weighs 224 tons.  The journey was perilous and almost ended in disaster.

As we near Westminster, we find the RAF Memorial, a monument dedicated to the members of the RAF (Royal Air Force) who died during the first World War.  The inscriptions were later augmented to include the members of the RAF who gave their lives in the second World War.  The symbol of the RAF is a golden eagle.

As we approach the docks at Westminster, we get a pretty good look at what most people call "Big Ben" and the Parliament buildings.

As you probably know, "Big Ben" is actually the name of the bell within the clock tower.  The tower itself is simply called the Clock Tower (though it has now been renamed the Elizabeth Tower in tribute to Queen Elizabeth II in her Diamond Jubilee year).

After disemarking at Westminster, I walked across the bridge to the south shore to get a better look at the Parliament buildings.

And another look from the bridge on the way back to the docks...

More on the return trip of my Thames River cruise, with points of interest on the south shore, in my next post!