London

Hailing from Manchester in the North West of the UK, getting to London can be pretty expensive, especially if you want to maximise your time there by getting a train prior to 10am. Add on the cost of a hotel and food etc, and a weekend in London can be more expensive than a week in Spain, which is warm and sunny most of the year ....... needless to say, I usually opted for the sun and warmth over a cultural visit my county's capital city.

So when we moved to a town nearer London and found that if I travel at 10am, it only costs £20, I am now slowly making my way round the sights! :thumb

Last week, I had a day with no plans, so decided that I wanted to see Norman Foster's roof in the British Museum, the Millenium Bridge, the turbine hall in Tate Modern and maybe have a look around St Pauls while I was in the area.

From the train station, I jumped on the Tube and got off at Oxford Circus, with the intention of walking upto the British Museum and maybe calling in at a few (ok, a lot :rofl) of the shops en route. My husband was hugely impressed that I didn't buy anything; though I did spy a few bargains including a 1D Mk III and Sigma 120-300mm, and a pair of very nice shoes.

When I got to the British Museum, the weather still wasn't great, but at least it wasn't raining. Would have loved a blue sky though!



I was surprised that it wasn't overly busy outside, as the last time I was in London during a school holiday, the que to get into the Natural History Museum must have been at least 2 hours long.

The only thing I was interested in seeing in the museum was Norman Fosters roof. I do enjoy looking at artifacts and cultural stuff, but I don't enjoy being pushed from pillar to post or jostled for position, so tend to not enjoy museums during school holidays!



I have to say, if you like architecture, the roof is something else! The way it curves is like an optical illusion - each of the triangular sections are the same size, so wherever you stand in the central atrium you get the same effect. I just wished it was blue sky and sunny outside, rather than grey and misreable!

I figured as I was already there, I may as well have a look around and see what they had! The Egyptian exhibits were crazy busy with families, to the point where you could barely move around the mummy section. To try to delay any deteriation of the mummies from light, the lights in this area were very low, and flash photography was not allowed, and it was too busy to be able to stand steadily to take a photo without flash or super high ISO (I don't like to push the ISO beyond about 1250 on my 40D). Downstairs, I tried to have a good look at the Rosetta Stone, but could barely get near even though that area wasn't as busy as the mummy area. It was bigger than I was expecting, though I don't know quite what size I was expecting it to be!



After I had had enough of the crowds in the British Museum, I decided I would test my sense of direction by walking down to the Thames and then along the Embankment to the Millenium Bridge and Tate Modern.

Walking along the embankment the weather improved dramatically. A lot of the local workers were out having a run in their lunch breaks while others just sat on the benches in the fresh air enjoying the sun, which had some welcome warmth to it.

I swapped my lens over from the 10-22mm and put my old 28-90mm on to take this photo of the City with Waterloo Bridge in the foreground. I knew there was a good reason not to use this lens in the past as it is really quite soft, only now my 17-85mm lens is broken, I have no alternative walkabout lens at the moment. :cry



I am not interested by modern art on the whole; mainly as I don't 'get' it. So, I went to Tate Modern purely to see the turbine hall. I did take some photos, but they don't do justice to the size of the place. This one was taken at the opposite end to the main entrance; the grey stuff on the floor is Sunflower Seeds 2010 created by Ai Weiwei, I didn't read the board on this piece, but it was basically millions (billions?) of individual hand made porcelain sunflower seeds placed on the floor. I did tell you I don't 'get' modern art! You can see the people on the left handside of the building to give you some sense of scale to the hall.



At this point I decided I was pushing time, so decided to leave Tate Modern and head back over the Millenium Bridge to visit St Pauls. Walking back over the Millenium Bridge, the view was picture perfect, with St Pauls framed perfectly, unfortunately, the sun was directly behind me and the Tate Modern building was casting long shadows. This shot is SooC.



Once up on the bridge, I had a go at taking some more shots:





I walked up to St Pauls hoping to find an old woman selling bags of bird seed for tuppence like in Mary Poppins, and was dissapointed to find that she wasn't there, and there were not that many birds either :dunno. I spent a few minutes trying to get a decent shot of the front of the catherdral without getting run over or getting buses in the middle of the shot. Again the lighting wasn't at its best, but with limited time, you make the most of what you have.



I was dissapointed to find that it cost £14 per adult to enter into the cathedral, so decided against going inside.

So this brought me to the end of my day in London. From here I got the Tube back to the train station and the train home! For my next trip, I think I am going to visit Greenwich and take a shot of me (or someone in my family!) jumping over the Greenwich Meridian! :thumb Or I may just go back with my tripod and try to improve on these shots using my ND grads to try to remove / blur some of the hoardes of tourists!

Thanks for looking at my little day trip!!