On our second day in London we had started off with the intention of visiting one of the palaces that are in the city, having used to belong to past royalty. After traveling close to the destination and walking through the park where the facility was located, we found that the place was closed that day. With that plan falling through, we made our way to the area where the London Bridge was located. Getting into the area we stumbled across one of the tourist attractions I wanted to check out but totally forgot about. The HMS Belfast, a WW2 era battlecruiser is anchored on the Thames and serves as a museum, The ship is kept up to original conditions, looking as it would've when it sailed, with the addition of a cafe and bathrooms, along with facilities for overnight tours and groups. We spent a good amount of time touring the ship, from the bridge all the way down to the boiler rooms and fore to aft. Once we had our fill of the HMS Belfast, we made our way to the London Bridge. At the London Bridge we checked in and walked up the huge number of stairs to get to the top of the south tower where we read a bunch of factoids on the construction of the bridge before making our way into the west walkway, reading more information on the bridge, along with getting some nice views over London proper and the river from way up high. There was even a section of the floor made up of glass where you can walk over and look straight down to the roadway and the river, far down below. Those with weak nerves may not care for this but it is very interesting to check out. We made our way across over to the north tower, then across the east walkway and back to the north tower and down the stairs. Once back on ground level we went into the engine room area where the old coal fired steam boilers and piston engines remain preserved. These old powerplants supplied the steam power to raise and lower the drawbridge up to 1971. Now the system is electric and hydraulic powered. It's interesting how this bridge used this primitive power plant all the way up to the late 20th century. Lastly, we took a little train ride over to another part of town where there was a Chinese buffet restaurant. The area we came up into from the subway was like a little version of Times Square with a lively lit up part of town with many shops and restaurants and other venues for people to spend money in. We navigated through this area over to the restaurant to eat up then hit the train back to the hotel to chill for the night. Filled up like little ticks, we chilled for the night, able to do a few things before finally crashing once again around 930-10pm, ready to pick things back up again and hit a couple more tourist spots in London, namely the Postal Rail Museum and London Zoo. More to come...
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