First visit to London

16th Feb We left Reading at 9:30 by train and reached London Paddington station in half an hour flat. Journey seemed much shorter as I admired the pictureque countryside fly by.

Paddington station is majestic and impresses a first time visitor with its historic antique view. From there, we went down the elevator to minus 2 level to catch a Tube to Waterloo station. Underground Tubes are excellent means of public transport, you just need a map in hand to know which tube to get into. No chance of getting lost!

Just out of this station, we were greeted by the huge 'London Eye'. It has 32 capsules and houses upto 25 people in each capsule. One complete round in this giant wheel takes around 30 min. yawwnnn....avoided it.. have already seen the aeriel view from the plane!

We headed directly to the river cruise. The weather was cold, but not unbearable. Listening to a good and sometimes hilarious commentary on almost all of the buildings on either side of the river Thames- the parliament house, the Big Ben, etc, the river cruise ended at the famous Tower bridge. We walked down couple of streets in the hope of getting a Mc Donalds veg burger for lunch...instead, grabbed a Subway sandwich and spent quite a good time at the Tower Bridge , basking in the world famous tourist spot.

By the way, the "London Bridge" is not as shown in this picture to the right..yes, it is a misnomer....this is "Tower Bridge". The actual London Bridge is just a PJ bridge...nothing special about it!
Upon entering inside the towers of the tower bridge, we were shown 2 documentaries on how the bridge came into existance, how many designs were rejected before this one was finalized, the amount of work and effort by the people and the working mechanism of the bridge. Also, how deep sea divers toiled to lay the foundation. It was very interesting.

Walking on the bridge's pavement, observing the cars race by and appreciating the wonderful view of London around, I also noticed the separator cleavage on the bridge road. This is where the bridge splits into two, when huge ships have to cross across the bridge.
Next, we visited the engine room where the working mechanism of how the bridge splits into two is explained very clearly in a easy to understand and impressive manner.

Reached Madame Tussauds museum at 4:30 and a huge queue greeted us. Realising that we will not be successfull in getting a detailed view inside before the closing time, we headed for Buckingham palace. Pretty, but you wont be impressed if u have already seen the wonderful Mysore palace!

Well, this was all that we could see in a day. There are so many other tourist attractions and interesting places to visit in London, we require alteast 2 more days to get a glimpse of all.

Waiting eagerly for our next visit...