East Along the Thames

I just got back to Belsize Park and am sitting down to blog again today for two reasons: (1) Spooner and his flatmates are all out at an event at school, so I have the place to myself, and (2) I have to be out early tomorrow morning to meet a Flickr mate at the Angel -- we're going to Abney Park Cemetery in Stoke Newington.

Soon after I left the house this morning, I realized that my spreadsheet, containing all the important info about where I was going, how to get there, what time things were open, etc., was on the floor of the guestroom. I was off the grid. Flying without instruments. But I freaked out only for a few minutes and went on with the plan that I had in my head.

Sunshine! Blue sky! The best weather I've had yet (it's been grey, but not a drop of rain). My explorations were all east of Tower Bridge. I started out at Tower Hill tube station, walked around the west and south sides of the Tower, and then walked around St Katharine Docks. The highlight was seeing Dead Man's Hole under the bridge -- a place where bodies were dumped into the Thames from the Tower -- but the tide was low and I just had to imagine the water taking the corpses out to sea.

Next, I walked over the bridge and down Shad Thames to the Design Museum, where I stopped in for a quick look at the shop and use of the loo. I debated going in to see an exhibit called Under a Fiver (stuff that costs less than five pounds), but I pressed on and walked along the Thames Walk through Bermondsey to Rotherhithe. I walked past many old wharf buildings (warehouses) that have been converted to luxury apartments, and many purpose-built luxury flats. "Luxury" is the operative word here -- this area has gone from a rat-infested, disease- and poverty-ridden area to prime real estate. I did see one block of council housing with nappies hanging up on the balcony.

At Canada Water, I got the tube to Canary Wharf and walked over to West India Quay to go to the Museum in Docklands, where the major exhibition now is Jack the Ripper's East End. It was a bit more about Jack the Ripper -- and less about the East End -- than I would have liked, but I did learn a bit about poverty, health, policing, etc., in that area in the late 1800s. Most interesting were the household-by-household maps of economic well-being in that time period. As you can imagine, there's significant overlap between the most abject poverty and the places the Ripper's victims lived or their bodies were found. And there was some overlap with what I'd seen on the walk about Jewish radicalism in the East End that I'd done on Monday.

The sky was still blue and the sun still shined when I left the museum, so I took the DLR to Greenwich and rode on the Greenwich Wheel. It's a Ferris wheel, with enclosed pods, that's smaller -- and cheaper -- than the London Eye. I liked it, and I might even be brave enough now to go on the Eye ... on another visit.

While I was in Greenwich, I did a quick loop through the Greenwich Market, where I bought some vintage buttons, and walked around St Alfeges church.

Travel tip: When you find a good loo, make a mental note of where it is so that you can do a pit stop there when you're next in the area. I knew that there were nice loos at the Design Museum and the Information Centre in Greenwich, so I stopped at both, and I'd been to the Museum in Docklands before so I knew to plan a pit stop there. On this adventure, I found fairly nice public loo near All Hallows by the Tower as well.

Pedometer reading: Just over 20,000 steps, 8.21 miles

Expenses:

• £2.40 for two rolls, a clementine, and a beverage (eaten throughout the day -- this kept me going just fine)
• £5.60 for the Museum in Docklands (I had a 20% off coupon that I got online)
• £7 for the Greenwich Eye
• £3 for Greenwich Market purchase
• Topped up Oyster with a tenner
  

West Along the Thames

Each time I visit London, I try to explore a new area. Last trip, it was Islington and a bit of Chelsea (rained out). This time, I chose Chiswick for one of my new adventures. Chiswick is well west of London -- it took about an hour to get there, past Hammersmith on the District Line.

My first destination yesterday was the Treatment Rooms, just a couple blocks from the Chiswick Park tube station. This is a private house, owned by an artist who has covered the front and back facades, as well as the garden wall, with mosaics. Oh, and there's a truck parked outside that has also been covered with mosaics, including lettering that says "My other car is a Turner Prize reject." There's a big tiki on the front, and little skulls and stuff, with wild bright colors everywhere. The back wall is the most interesting bit -- it commemorates Luis Ramirez who was executed by the state of Texas in 2005 for a crime he didn't commit.

Next, I walked quite a ways due south toward the Thames to get to Chiswick Park and Chiswick House. This was the estate of the second Earl of Burlington, who took the Grand Tour when he was 20, bought tons of art in Italy, became a great admirer of Palladio, and built his stately home using Palladian principles in about 1720 or so. The grounds are currently undergoing landscaping restoration, so there's a lot of orange plastic fencing in different areas and scaffolding on a bridge and a gazebo, but they are still lovely -- wild in part, and more formal as you approach the house. It's a popular place for people to walk their dogs, and the grounds were teeming with hounds and mutts of all sorts, most off their leashes and many wet from a dip in the pond. Disconcerting to an affirmed hater of dogs such as myself.

I did the house tour, which consists of a 20 minute movie about the Earl and then you're left to wander around on your own. Most of the rooms are empty of furniture, but the velvet wall coverings and ornamental gilding have been restored, as well as the famous Chiswick tables. Lots of the Earl's art collection is hanging on the walls. Photos not allowed indoors.

From there, I kept walking towards the river, cutting through the churchyard of St Nicholas to get there. I then walked along Chiswick Mall, which is right next to the Thames. It was low tide at the time, but I could see that high tide had brought the river up over the grassy bits across the road from the posh houses, and just a bit onto the pavement. Sometimes, the river comes right up to people's front doors, and they have special solid metal gates with rubber gaskets to hold the water back. A lot of uneventful rambling brought me back to the Stamford Brook tube station, with a stop for a panino and beverage before getting back on the tube.

Next destination: Pimlico, for the Tate Britain, where I saw the Frances Bacon exhibition. I didn't know anything about him, but now I can tell you that he was not a happy guy. The paintings are dark and disturbing. Where there are bright colors, they are associated with gore or violence. All his people are fragmented and distorted, shown as isolated or anguished. In need of something uplifting after that, I went through the Turner rooms and was surprised to see how loose and abstract some of his landscapes were. They were filled with glowing light, unlike the grey skies outside (but no rain yet since I've been here, so I really shouldn't complain).

My final destination was the Guess Where London (my Flickr group) meetup at a pub in the City, and I had plenty of time to get there so I decided to take the boat that goes from the Tate Britain to the Tate Modern. I walked across the Millennium Bridge, and trudged through crowds of office workers up to Gracechurch Street for the meetup. It was great to see my old mates and meet some new ones. We compared notes for our Open House Weekend plans, and I hope I'll run into a few of them on Saturday or Sunday. I'll be wearing my Flickr button and my Knitters for Obama button, so I should be pretty easy to spot.

Pedometer reading: 21,500 steps, 8.84 miles

Expenses:

• 60p for a bagel
• £4.20 for admission to Chiswick House
  
• £4 for a panino and limonata
• Admission to Frances Bacon exhibition: 0 (I used a friend's member card)
• £3 for boatride
• £2.30 for beer

Note: Rosenbeans has asked me to detail my transport expenses, but I can't do that. Each journey costs something different, depending on how many zones you cross. There's a maximum amount that you can be charged for a day, and if you exceeded it, your Oyster card is adjusted overnight. As I noted in my first post, I put £20 on my Oyster when I arrived at Heathrow. There was about 6 quid left on it from my April trip. I'll probably put another tenner or two on the card before the end of the week.

Another trip, another plan

It's time for me to start planning my September trip to London. My loyal readers (all four of them) will think that this blog is sounding like a broken record. The main focus of this trip is London Open House Weekend -- two days when over 600 buildings, usually not accessible by the general public, will open their doors to the hoi polloi. I've placed my online order for the booklet (5 quid) detailing all the buildings that will be open so that I can start making my plan of attack.

I'd actually given some thought to going over without having made a spreadsheet for the trip. Who am I kidding? As if. But the spreadsheet is looking mighty empty right now, and I've got to get cracking. I reckon the weather will be much better in September than what I've had in my previous April and October visits, and so I'm thinking of doing some walks along the Thames, weather permitting. One might be in Chiswick, and another from Tower Bridge to Rotherhithe. I'd also like to go back to Southbank Mosaics to volunteer again. I'll post more as the plan takes shape.