Underground, Overground and everything in between

Big Ben & Houses of Parliament

It so happened that Andrea, Guido's better half, emailed Sonja that Guido would be in Europe, more so in England, and even better: in London on the exact weekend that we had planned to be here. And there was Nick, desperately trying to meet with us in Germany, and on failing to do so, simply choosing London as the spot to make an encounter possible on that very weekend, too.

As usual we took the tube to get to this morning's venue, which was nearby river Thames, only a few stations away from our hotel.

Destination: Cockfoster... really?

Stars aligned: A random couple in town for vacation, plus a guy from California in town for business, plus another guy from Knutsford in town for family business equal an International Moto-Blogger Breakfast on one sunny August Saturday in London.

Of course the Germans had managed to arrive way to early (always are), but then again, so did the British gentleman, and we had a long chatty breakfast (not completely gluten free, but vegan) somewhere close to the river Thames.

Guido, Nick and Sonja

Three hours later Guido had to leave for another meet-up, and after saying our goodbyes we were hungry now for sightseeing extraordinaire and voted Nick for tour guide.

Nick & Roland

Crossing River Thames on Millennium Bridge

We crossed the river on the (in)famous Millennium Bridge a.k.a. the wobbly bridge. Opened on time in the year 2000, bad engineering had it sway when too many people entered the bridge, closing it down for another two years in order to reinforce it.

The Shard, at 309.6m currently the tallest building in the EU

We usually make good use of the subway system to get around in London town, but Nick suggested trying the overground train for a change. We'd never been, so it was a nice surprise... one could actually see the city fly by.

Overground

Nick explaining the world to Roland

Bigger on the inside?

We ended up in Greenwich, and had a look at the Cutty Sark, a fast British Clipper from the 19th century. Alas, the former beauty of many oceans wasn't simply docked like a normal ship but surrounded by and built into a tourist facility with shops. What a shame!

Cutty Sark

Meanwhile the guys were getting hungry (again) and we found an American diner with a fairly decent salad for Sonja.

Nick doesn't like to share...

Again we had spent too much time chatting along, and therefore missed the time slot to visit the National Maritime Museum.

National Maritime Museum

Vintage speed boat

It also was getting too late for the Greenwich Observatory, best known for location of the prime meridian. (The Brits have theirs and the French have Paris...). The view from there however, was awesome, and well worth the climb.

Yes, we came all the way up to this spot.

Back in the valley we opted for another means of overground transport: the double-decker bus. It certainly wasn't the fastest way to get back into downtown, but it was fun nevertheless. Kudos to the bus driver, driving in crazy traffic and managing not to bump into other traffic participants.

An hour later we arrived at the bus terminal close to the British Museum, and thirsty from the journey we did the next best thing, and entered the nearest watering hole. It turned out to be a typical British pub with the original name London Pub. Seriously!

And here endeth the lesson.

The rest of the evening became a bit fuzzy. We have no memory whatsoever of how we got back to the hotel.