Last day in London

When in London, I stayed near Kensington Gardens, which is near the Albert Hall. I had a look at it one morning and think it looks like a nice building. Here, have a look.



As I was taking the bus through central London on my way to the airport I filmed a few minutes of the crazy traffic.





On the flight on the way back to Cork I saw the snow on the top of a mountain. Looks very strange, doesn't it?

London transport

When I was in London recently I met up with a friend of mine who I used to work with in Dublin. At closing time I said I was going to get the tube and my friend was getting a night bus. I left her at the station and I took what I thought was a train to the center of London. It finished at Earls Court and I had to get a night bus myself to get back to where I was staying.

It all worked out ok, it was like a night bus anywhere else that I've been on - a few drunk people and a few crazies! Aren't we all?

This is the ghost train as I called it that I took that night. Really eerie as I was the only person on it.

The Monument - London

The Monument in London which is known as 'The Monument' was built to celebrate the Great Fire of London of 1666. It was built between 1671 and 1677 by Sir Christopher Wren and Dr Robert Hooke.

Its height is 202 feet or 62 metres, which is the exact distance from the fire's source in a bakers shop in Pudding Lane.

You have to climb 311 steps to reach the top of it. There's no lift unfortunately - if you see the photos you will understand why. It is the tallest free standing Doric column in the world and it's made of Portland stone.

For someone who doesn't like heights, I don't know why I climbed it. It was ok going up it, except when I met someone on the stairs and I had to somehow make way for them - believe me it's very tricky in such a small space!

When I did get to the top, all I wanted to do was to go straight down it again. But I had sent time and money going up it, so I thought I should try and overcome my fear and so I walked around the balcony once, took these photos and then came right back down to earth.

These pictures show the narrow stairs, the view from the top and some views of the base of the monument, showing its story.

Around Trafalgar Sqaure

To me Trafalgar Square is like the center of London. It helps me to use it as the reference point when planing a journey in London. There's lots of interesting sights there - like the National Gallery and Nelson's Column and it's near to other interesting places like Piccadilly Circus and Covent Garden.

This little video clip shows the square from the area just in front of the gallery.


These photos show some of the sights in more detail. Included is the church St Martin in the Fields, the National Gallery and Big Ben in the distance.

St Martin in the Fields church.


National Gallery.


Big Ben.

Few days in London - Speakers' Corner.

I found some cheap flights on the web and decided to go to London for a few days. I had been there before - so it wasn't all new to me. I started my day by going to Hyde Park to see the famous Speakers' Corner.

It wasn't really what I was expecting to be honest. There were lots of 'religious' type people there, going on about what they believe and why they believe it. Here you can see a short video clip and some photos of what goes on there.

Watch out... thin ice

It is still very cold in Ireland, much like other places in Europe I believe. It's zero degrees Celsius here in Cork at the moment.

I know, I know it's worse in other places but we're not really used to it being so cold, so that in turn makes it even colder somehow??

The weather can make things look a lot different from their normal appearance. Here are some examples of what I've seen recently on my travels.

The pond was frozen over and as you can see, there are massive chunks of ice sitting on top of it. The little statue doesn't look to having a great time either.

New year, new name

Well, we've made it into 2010. To celebrate, a new title was called for and so "From Granada to Seville..." was picked.

If you want to know why, just leave a comment and I'll tell you.