Tourist time in London

Although I can hardly call Dad and Sue tourists to London, their visit in the middle of a Europe trip last September meant we got to indulge in some tourism and trip around London with our cameras out. Dad had a milestone birthday earlier in the year for which I gave him 'deluxe' tickets for the London Eye, one of the super-iconic icons, which I now live only a mile from. Super deluxe was obviously a birthday treat and I have to say, even though we missed tourist peak-season, it was a novelty to dodge any queues and only share the big 30-ish person pod with another 2 people, while sipping some French champagne.

Regular punters sharing their pod with lots of other people

East London has some total gems and was a place that I remember photographing lots in former visits before I moved to the UK, so what a joy to actually live and work there for my first 6 months as a visa-holding-resident. Sundays are made for coffee and treats and flowers and quaint souvenir browsing at the Columbia Road flower market, a medium sized stroll from the flat.

Taking photos of Dad and of Sue taking photos on Columbia Road, E2

As we were moving on to the 'far east' aka Stratford from Columbia Road, we didn't leave the market with that flower-market badge of coolness, the brown paper wrapped bouquet. But we had postcards, gift cards and well caffeinated lavender-scented-loaf-fed tummies, to fuel us through the faux finger-point-from-John-Lewis Olympic Park tour. Had to be done really, given I had spent basically the entirety of my time working there. Park atmosphere was admittedly lacking, without the mega-phone-touting 'gamesmaker' volunteers and the crowds of sweaty spectators and crazed pin-badge-traders.

The closest we could get was the viewing window in John Lewis

The final destination for the East side Sunday was Greenwich, with the DLR conveniently passing through Canary Wharf above the ground, so I could point out the various work landmarks from the limited office days I enjoyed while Olympic-ing. Namely, the office building, the tube stop, and Strada, our chain-of-choice for Friday pizzas and pints at lunchtime.  On arrival at my favouritely named (but quite dull) tube station - Cutty Sark for Maritime Greenwich - we strolled quite efficiently up through Greenwich Park to the observatory where you can stand with a foot on either side of the one and only Greenwich mean time line (GMT). Sadly we didn't make it to the observatory before last-entries, though quite frankly, you don't really need to as the line continues down the pathway next to it, so if you walk down you can get your GMT thrills for free, as well as an excellent view of London for free.

Greenwich Mean Time

View to the East from near the Greenwich observatory, with remnants of Olympic equestrian seating still intact in the foreground.

The fun thing about my visitors having spent loads of time in London before, was that it presented a challenge to find some activities that none of us had done yet. The Street Art Walking Tour in East London was a highlight, with a pretty clued up artist showing us all kinds of masterpieces in the nooks and crannies of the neighbourhood, a few stones throws from my then-flat.

This guy was a favourite on the street art tour. Entirely air-can painted

Story-book-esque illustrations adorning the back of a school

You could also say that no trip to London is complete without some sort of nod to the royal whanau and we decided to go all out and do the state rooms, the Queen's galleries and the royal mews. I was a bit disappointed to not see one real horse in our whole time at the mews, but the coaches were impressive.

Ornate detail on one of the royal horse carriages



Photos inside were forbidden but this is the back of Buckingham Palace, after our tour and token scone (not sure how the queen would feel about the paper plate though..)

Obviously we packed lots into a short week of time, and it was such a treat to have visitors as a freshly redundant unemployed person, as I was able to join in everything 100%!


Tate Modern: we'd just missed Damien Hirst whose butterflies I saw a few weeks earlier

Here's the amazing view you can get for absolutely free from the top of One New Change