Looking through the London Eye

The train trip from Dijon was remarkably quick and uneventful.  The cab ride from Gare de Lyon to Gare du Nord  cost a tiny bit more than the trip from Gare du Nord to Gare de Lyon on my trip to Digoin, but the peace of mind it gave me made it worthwhile.  Once again, I found the trip through the Chunnel to be remarkably easy.  I guess I've recovered from my Chunnel claustrophobia.

Coming off the train at St. Pancras I went in search of Kathryn, Helen and Kaitlin and by some miracle, I found them in short order.

Photo by Helen Mongan Rallis

We had a quick lunch and then headed in the direction of the London Eye.  We wandered through Southwark.  Forty years ago when my family lived in Cranfield in Bedfordshire, I had the opportunity to attend a concert with my cousin at Southwark Cathedral.  The performers were Ravi Shankar and Yehudi Menuhin who had put together an East meets West program.  We didn't see the cathedral on our walk, but I was reminded of the event as we walked and as I write, particularly in light of Shankar's passing this past week.

Our destination was a few miles away, so we decided to take the tube.  We emerged across the street from Parliament,

Big Ben,

and Westminster Abbey.

We crossed the bridge over to the London Eye.

The bridge was hopping.  I particularly appreciated the piper.

There were nut roasters and souvenir vendors along the bridge, but we managed to resist temptation and head for the ticket office (about 20 pounds for an adult ticket if memory serves).  It was the first Monday in November, so the lines were very manageable.  Helen, Kaitlin and I proceeded to the entrance

Note the bride and groom posing on the left.

and walked up the ramp and waited for our pod to arrive.  The wheel moves very leisurely, so hopping on is quite easy.

As one might expect,the views were spectacular.  The photo above shows St. Paul's Cathedral--a destination I hope to visit the next time I am in London.  While we were on the wheel the clouds played havoc with the light.

It made for some interesting photos.

Once we disembarked, we returned across the bridge to check in on Westminster Abbey


We walked around the side of Parliament  and saw the Veterans' Day display.

This image doesn't do justice to the extent of the display.  It was quite massive.

We had hoped to do a tour of the Abbey, but it was too close to Evensong.  We did learn that the cost of an adult ticket was 16 pounds.  We observed others entering the Abbey and realized we could go inside for free by attending Evensong--which was actually a really wonderful opportunity.  The female guard outside the Abbey was rather stern and admonished us not to take any photos and to stay for the entire hour of the service.  Frankly, we wouldn't have had it any other way.

This particular service featured the first half of the Megillat Esther.  It felt a bit odd not to boo the name of Hamen as we do when the megillah is read at Purim.

It would have been nice to spend more time in the Abbey, but it wasn't possible this trip.  We did see the tomb of Sir Isaac Newton, and that was worth the price of admission.

Kathryn, Kaitlin and Helen had tickets to see "Billy Elliot," but I needed to check in at my B & B in Hammersmith.  Kathryn had helped me find this place and I was very satisfied with it.  It was no frills (cereal, toast and coffee for breakfast), but comfortable, very reasonable, clean and safe.

I settled down for the evening and had a very comfortable night's sleep.  The next day was our real focus--the tour of the Harry Potter studio.  More on that tomorrow.