tower bridge

after a string of sleep-ins, this morning hattie & i actually managed to get our lazy selves into the city before midday. crazy stuff, i know. we meandered in and around st. paul's cathedral. it's near the river thames, and is the highest point in the city of london. it's especially pretty at the moment because it's stone walls have been cleaned in prep for the 2012 olympics. potentially getting my dates wrong here, but i think st. paul's was built in the 17th century...making it one of the oldest cathedrals in london.

there were grey skies all round, so we took a pitstop in a café facing st. paul's. we chatted over a morning coffee - watching the rush of london peak-hour go past outside, along ludgate hill.

one of the things i've loved the most about london (& europe in general), is that behind every building & monument there's a story - if you bother to ask/read about it, there's almost always a peculiar or funny story that can be told. 

for st. paul's, i discovered that there's a whispering gallery beneath the huge dome. if you get really close to the wall and whisper to it, you can be heard on the other side - because your voice is carried perfectly across the curve of the dome. bit impressive??

keeping true to our lazy nature, we opted for a bus to tower bridge - rather than walking. my first ever london double-decker bus trip! naturally, we zoomed up to the second level, keen to get a spot right at the front. i was completely crushed to find somebody in the seat i had mentally claimed. ah well, life goes on.

we walked around the tower of london, but after emptying our wallets at camden a few days ago - we stuck to appreciating it from the outside ;) 

tower bridge was pretty funky, i'd never seen it up close before - only in about a million different movies. there were a bunch of guys re-painting the bridge. pimping it out in bright, bright, blue for the olympics next year. good stuff.

finally, it was off to euston railway station to get hattie on her train back home, up north. you'd think i'd be getting good at this whole "goodbye thing" by now...but no, it was sad times all round. until next time hatatat...it better be soon!

S.