All my life I've been interested in history and I've spent much of my life following it backwards through time taking tangents, meeting road-blocks, finding new paths and generally enjoying every minute of it. It is very much a hobby of mine and one I am very passionate about.
Fortunately I've been able to combine this passion with travel and have visited many of the places I have studied. With each path I followed I found more and more I wanted to follow; There just isn't enough time though.
History is sometimes very clear and easy to follow but often monumentally frustrating and indistinct and, no matter how clever the historian, the truth can often be elusive. I don't mind though, it's part of the fun...The thrill of the chase and satisfaction of finding the truth, or more paths to follow; It's frustrating and fantastic all at once!
A little while ago Faith and I were fortunate enough to have the chance to spend several weeks away, split between the UK and Finland, and whilst Finland was all about time with family the UK was an amazing adventure of discovery and a journey through history.
It's too massive to go into in just one post but suffice it to say that Faith and I delved deeply into the long and colourful, often brutal, history the United Kingdom has to offer and connected with our love of travel at the same time.
London is a long way from Australia but that's where we started and after a transit of over twenty four hours, via Singapore, we landed at about 6am, hopped the train from Heathrow to Paddington Station, and arrived at our hotel around 7am. We were pretty trashed but mindful of the jet-lag thing we endeavoured to stay up until normal bedtime to get our body-clocks set. It wasn't easy.
We ended up taking a long walk through Hyde Park, our hotel was right on the north edge of the park, and down to Buckingham Palace where we saw the changing of the guard which was very cool. The image below shows us at around lunch time, with almost no sleep for twenty four hours or so - We're happy because we're on holiday, not delirious through lack of sleep. We ate a baguette in the park and felt fairly happy to be on the first day of our latest adventure.
I'll write more about it in time, and some of the things we did in London itself, but today is about an error I made in respect of one of the most iconic landmarks in London.
Day one, Buckingham Palace, after over twenty four hours of transit and flights. Our UK adventure begins...Note the little guard dude keeping the Queen safe in the background.
The main image above and the one directly below shows Tower Bridge which spans the Thames north to south. It's an impressive sight and one of the most recognisable and most-photographed structures in London. It's very cool from any angle with its two Victorian Gothic-styled towers taking centre stage and whilst it's a functional bridge carrying vehicles and people on top and opening to allow vessels pass underneath it is a popular tourist attraction as well.
But I mentioned an error above...So what am I talking about?
Well...Embarrassingly and to my great shame, I had thought this bridge was called London Bridge. What an idiot. (Apparently many make this mistake though - Other idiots like me.)
You see, London Bridge, the current one, was opened in 1973 and is an ugly box-girder bridge upstream from Tower Bridge by about 800 metres. It is uninspiring, uninteresting and probably not worthy of a travel blog. Harsh? Maybe, it's pretty bland-looking though.
Of course, there's been several London Bridge's over the last few thousand years with the current one being the replacement for a 19th-Century version which in turn replaced a 600 year-old medieval bridge. Prior to that one the London Bridge's have all been timber, which is why they haven't survived.
Looking back in history the first bridge to span the Thames was a Roman structure, possibly a military-style pontoon bridge, which provided a vital short-cut to the Kentish ports and around which the Roman trading settlement of Londinium rapidly grew.
Here you can see London Bridge, the uninspiring concrete mess in the foreground with a couple of buses on it, with Tower Bridge in the distance..
Ok, so now I've admitted to my idiocy and have clarified that this is not London Bridge we can focus back on Tower Bridge as pictured. In my defence though, do a Google search on London Bridge and hit images...Primarily images of Tower Bridge will come up.
This iconic bridge began construction in 1886 and took only eight years to construct; Opened in 1894 by the Prince and Princess of Wales, it began its working life and has operated almost every single day since, the few exceptions being when maintenance has been carried out.
It carries about 40,000 vehicles and pedestrians each day and the bascules, the opening road sections, open about three times a day to let vessels pass through. This takes about five minutes per bascule and they open to 86 degrees. It's cool to watch. You can see the bascules in the image below with a Thames ferry below them.
The bascules were steam-powered originally however the steam machines have since been replaced by electro-hydraulic systems. Other than that the bridge is virtually unchanged from the original.
The Victorian Gothic-styled towers make for a pretty picture - Styled that way to compliment the Tower of London close by.
These days the overhead walkways are open but in the early days they became a haunt for prostitutes and people of ill-repute as they were rarely used by regular pedestrians due to the long flights of stairs to get up there. It was closed in 1910 for that reason but reopened again in 1982 and now tourists go up there for a birds-eye view. They have a glass floor up there now and it's cool to watch the bridge opening from up there.
The bridge is very close to the Tower of London, hence the name. The Tower dates from the 11th century and is one of the must-visit locations in London. We spent about six hours there, there's a lot to see, and I'll write about it some other time. It's an impressive place, infamous and famous at the same time.
Henry VIII had his wife, Anne Boleyn, beheaded there...Just one of many. It is said her ghost walks the Church of St Peter ad Vincula within the Tower grounds carrying her head in its arm...I didn't see her though.
The Tower of London has a long and rich history, so many stories to tell, and I'll probably delve into a few when I do a post about it.
The white tower, a keep or "donjon" which is the most secure and strongest structure of a medieval castle. The Tower of London is a very popular tourist attraction and the White Tower is just a small part of it. The Tower of London has been many things in its long history - Some of which I'll reveal in the future.
I don't know what it is about bridges and buildings that brings them so much attention; Maybe it's the size, the engineering or simply the fact that that they seem so impossible at times...You know the how do they stand up sort of feeling one gets when looking at iconic structures. Maybe it's just that architecture is good to photograph? For me it's a mixture of that and the story they tell.
The Tower Bridge certainly has stories to tell and presence; It's a celebrity in its own right, and there's no shortage of people lining up to photograph it, walk it and to visit the exhibition within it - Faith and I were two such people and I'll be honest, it felt good. We were left with the same feeling we got when we visited the Eiffel Tower in Paris the first time...It ticked a box and brought all those years of seeing it in books and movies together in the real life. Like la Tour Eiffel, the Tower Bridge is somewhere we will go again...It's pretty difficult to avoid it when in London.
I'm glad to have cleared up my bridge error and to have done so in person...It's an iconic structure. Whilst Tower Bridge is just one way of getting from one side of the Thames to the other it seems to do it in style, so much more style than London bridge in my opinion.
Design and create your ideal life, don't live it by default - Tomorrow isn't promised.
Be well
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