Tag Archives: london

It’s been a while since the last instalment of my tales-from-the-places-to-stay-side (hotels tag), mostly due to the fact that the places I’ve been staying in of late have been nothing to write home – or on a blog – about. But that changed recently, when we were in London!…

We stayed a night at the mighty Mitre hotel, which is right next-door to Hampton Court Palace, as it’s the perfect location for starting out early on the sixth leg of the Thames Path!…

A traditional English hotel:

• Ornate if a little puzzling topology of the interior spaces;
• Thin, steep, ancient, wooden, creaking staircases!
• Old English musty-musky rug-and-fireplace smells (+ sounds);
• You could shoot a period drama here with hardly any adjustments or decorations!

Read on…

My recent trip to London was a busy one not only on the business front, but on the touristic-walktastic one too. We got a central London walk in, and we did a new – long – stretch of the Thames Path. Along the way on these walks we took in the dominating Battersea Power Station, the inevitable Big Ben, and a surprising… Edward Snowden mosaic. There was another dominating architectural object we passed, which looked too interesting to pass up on, and which I haven’t told you about yet (didn’t want to break the stride of the Thames Path reporting). So here, today – quick rewind to it…

‘It’ being… Hampton Court Palace. Cue – architectural appreciation + historical education…

+ landscape veneration! ->

Read on…

After the other day’s recap of the five legs of the Thames Path already walked, herewith, leg 6. And as luck would have it – no rain! In fact the sun was shining, lighting up the fall reds and yellows just nice – not forgetting the sky’s blue:

‘Thames Path’ – that way. Good. Off we pop, along the southern bank of the river, westward, toward its source…

Read on…

Hi folks!

Still in London – we’ve done the nostalgia and we’ve lamented geopolitics, but we refuse to get down. So we go give London yet further inspection!…

First up – Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament. And we’re headed waaaaay over there, along the riverbank ->

A somber note…

Alas, the famous red telephone boxes are dying out. This one’s even got… a tree growing inside it! ->

There’s even a branch growing out the top! ->

Secure bicycle parking:

This building always reminds me of the cool British film FAQ About Time Travel (not seen it? Do so!). The house in the movie is smaller, but it still looks like they could be ‘twins’!

We’ve already walked quite far (there’s Big Ben in the distance) ->

And in the other direction – Battersea Power Station comes into view…

Suddenly…

Wait. But… How did he get here?! It got me thinking – better to be on the outside on a wall, than on the inside behind bars…

Battersea Power Station. Cult object extraordinaire. What a beaut! ->

However, as my travel companion, OA, pointed out: ‘Such a dominating architectural landmark really deserves plenty of space around it’. Come to think of it – he’s right: the modern office-shopping-residential complex built in recent years next to it is practically flush – it does take something away from the grandiose aesthetic. Still, I’m no city-planner/designer/architect, so what do I know? )

The view along the Thames:

And another look back at Battersea, after the pink lights become more noticable. Hmmm. I wonder why they chose pink? )

Just one thing missing: the pig on the wing ).

The rest of the photos from London are here.

Traditions come in different shapes and sizes. Some folks, for example, every New Year’s Eve go for a monster banya-session (at least in Russia!). Some folks – particularly adventurous Russians! – spend a month every summer in Kamchatka or Altai or the Kurils or some other similarly awesome part of the world. Other traditions are localized: like my tradition every time I’m in the British capital…

My London tradition is a hike along a section of the Thames Path, which is nearly 300 kilometers long, starts out at the Thames Barrier to the east of central London, and ends in Kemble, Gloucestershire, way out west – almost as far as the sea in the Bristol Channel. I’d completed several stretches of the path before over the years – from its start at the Thames Barrier (in 2016), to Hampton Court earlier this year. The next section would take us to the western edge of the Greater London Built-up Area, or just outside Greater London (confused? Me too:), which is just inside the M25 London Orbital Motorway, specifically – to Staines Bridge in the town of Staines-upon-Thames in the county of Surrey, which would take my total kilometers walked on the Parth to almost 80!

You might be thinking that walking along a path may not be fully… appropriate for one’s localized tradition in one of the foremost cosmopolitan, glamorous, etc. capitals of the world… But you’d be wrong! (IMHO!). For this is… the perfect path! I just like it so much I want to walk it over and over (and I do repeat some stretches, as sometimes I lose my way or it’s too rainy; more in this below). Even the sections I’ve already walked (sometimes twice already!) – I’d relish the chance to be pals’ guide: that’s how much I enjoy it. I mean, it even has its own tag on my blog – an exclusive status for a ‘mere’ path ). But before I get into my walk-report on this latest segment, let me briefly go over previous segments, as a summary review/reminder…

First leg

The Thames Barrier to Cutty Sark. Here’s the detailed walk-report. I highly recommend a read.

The Thames Barrier saves London every time the level of the river gets too high. There’s an information center there too:

Read on…

I was in London only a month ago – but, since if you’re tired of London, you’re tired of life‘, I was back in the UK capital just the other day!…

And – just as I prefer it – we arrived with plenty of time to spare before our business program was set to start, so, naturally – first things first – walkies time!…

Handily, our hotel was in the center of the city – a stone’s throw from the River Thames and not far from Buckingham Palace – so off we set for some London side-street strolling. But before we’d hardly gotten started, suddenly…

…Hold on… I think I recognize that building. Yes, it’s the Queen Elizabeth II Centre, where – precisely (!) 10 years ago (November 2011) – I took part in the London Cyberspace Conference, after having been personally invited by the then-foreign secretary, William Hague!

Read on…

I’ll start off by reminding you (since it was quite some time ago) about one of my perennial habits: whenever I’m in London, I go for a walk along the River Thames. And I don’t mean a short stroll along the riverbank, say, opposite the Houses of Parliament near to the London Eye. No, no [eye roll]. I mean a quick march along a considerable length of an unwalked stretch of the famous Thames Path, the extraordinarily long – 300km! – footpath that lines one or the other bank of the river. And I add a new section every year or two (notwithstanding force majeure like global pandemics). I’ve already gotten as far as Hampton Court Bridge from where the path starts (or ends) – at the Thames Barrier. Time to go further!…

1) Previous portions of the route over the years – all here for your perusing pleasure.

2) The last time I walked a length of the Thames Path was in the summer of 2018; accordingly, a memory-freshener of the sights seen along the path so far…

Here’s what’s been covered up to and including 2018:

Segment 1: from the Thames Barrier to Greenwich
Segment 2: from Greenwich (and the Cutty Sark) to the Jubilee Bridges
Segment 3: from the Jubilee Bridges to Putney Pier
Segment 4: from Putney Pier to Richmond locks
Segment 5: Richmond to Hampton Court. We got lost! Still need to get to Hampton Court…

Next up (can you guess?!) – Richmond to Hampton Court!…

All righty. This time we’d got the route right, but it looked like we’d got the weather wrong: it was drizzling all day. Wait – we’re in London. Surely that’s ‘right’, as in – typical? )

The system of locks and weirs on the Thames is used for controlling the flow of water down the river, enabling boats to navigate along much of it. Old-school it sure is too (completely analog, with good security [no internet connection:]) – with its being documented as far back as the Middle Ages! However, the lock in Richmond is a relatively new addition, opened as it was in 1894 – 127 years ago!

Read on…

London. Picture it…

Big Ben? The Houses of Parliament? That cool bridge, which isn’t London Bridge? Buckingham Palace? Oxford Street?… All that.

But what normally comes with all those iconic landmarks? Yes, of course – crowds; or – if not quite crowds, at least plenty of folks milling about here and there: some – locals; plenty – tourists. At least, that’s how it used to be…

But last Sunday, early morning, the capital seemed to have been deserted. No folks, no noise, no cars. Oxford Street – totally empty; the crossroads along it – not a soul to be seen! Look! ->

Read on…

Spot the difference! ->

Once – in 2014 – in London:

And once – in 2021 – in London:

Of course, I didn’t go to the British capital (just!) to look at giraffes. We had a busy business schedule planned…

First course – cybersecurity conference, organized by Tortoise Media (please don’t ask me why it’s called Tortoise. Still, not a bad idea: how can you forget it?:). They’d asked me to come and give a speech, I’d duly replied it’d be my pleasure, and a few months later – it was my pleasure!

Read on…

What with our crossing – on foot – the Tropic of Capricorn in Namibia, which I told you about in yesterday’s post, I got to thinking about the two very important geographical points, seven lines, a pair of meridians, and five parallels that adorn our globe – in all, nine objects:

– The North Pole;
– the South Pole;
– the Greenwich meridian;
– the 180^th meridian;
– the equator;
– the Arctic Circle;
– the Tropic of Cancer;
– the Tropic of Capricorn; and
– the Antarctic Circle.

I’ve been fortunate enough to have been at both the Poles and I’ve crossed all the meridians and parallels plenty times (mostly not noticing – high up in a plane). But it’s alas only seldom I’ve walked across, along, and photographed these geographical objects like I did recently with the Tropic of Capricorn. Still, let me go over what I have ticked off, and what remains still in my to-do list…

I. The North Pole: been.

All my tales from the northernmost side point are here. Specifically, a highlight for me – taking a dip in a hole cut in the polar ice (at the Barneo ice base) – here!

https://instagram.com/p/BpmWGgEAuhd

And btw: in good weather, the North Pole looks like this:

Read on…