Boffo!
Kate was mentioning prices in the comments for the first part of this post.
The Eye is dirt cheap. Pop across to their website and you'll find the price of a spiffy, fifty minute ride to be £15.
Fifteen quid! For fuck's sake, you can't buy a round of drinks for that!
I fully recommend the combined ride on the Eye and river trip. For very few groats more, you get a boat to take you from the Eye all the way down river to Tower Bridge and back and - as you should know by all my nagging and photo posts - the best way to see historic London is from the Thames.
So book your tickets right now, Kate, and remember to turn up at ten (it opens at half past) and blag an early ride in a nearly empty gondola.
Good news for Lynn and Utsav and anyone else of a vertiginous bent.Despite the height, you get no real feeling of vertigo.
Honest!When the ride starts, the chickenshits tend to huddle together on the big seats in the middle, but as it goes up I invariably find more and more of them tentatively approaching the edge and going "Oooh! It's not scary at all. You don't get a sense of the height."
Because you're fully enclosed it feels safe.
So no excuses!
Anyhoo … It's the view you've come up here to see.And of course to wave at me in my office.
So come and join us at the window and we'll take a look see.
Upriver, you can see Battersea and Chelsea and Westminster, with the Houses of Parliament (anagram: The House Of Rampant Lies) just across the Thames.
Here you can see Downing Street and the Ministry of Defence with St.James's Park behind.My walk to work takes me along the riverside or through the park.
A bit further round and we find Somerset House and Charing Cross Station.Follow the road up and you'll reach the Mecca of tourist tat, Oxford Street with the Telecom Tower in the background.
Right in the middle, far in the distance you'll make out Tower 42 and The Gherkin.A few hundred yards the other side of them is Liverpool Street Station, where Old Dive starts his walk to work in the mornings.
Flick back up to the Big Ben shot and you'll see why I'm still remarkably fit.
It's about a five mile hike and I don't hang about.
Terroni was asking what Londoners think of the Eye.We are a cynical bunch; probably even more bitter and twisted than those most English of Americans, our brothers in Noo Yoik, and so we heaped scorn on the Eye while it was being constructed.
But then we had a go and "Whee!"
We love it.
We're actually quite proud of it and feel that everyone who visits should take a ride.
It also looks pretty spiffy.So there you have it.
Kate and Shazza are both visiting the UK this year.
Come an take a ride on the Eye.
Coffee and sushi is on me.
18 comments:
Gosh even i'm tempted after all that, Dive. I know i shall do it one day, but only with a nice gent to hold on to. I couldn't go up there alone. The views are just amazing and i adore views. Your pointing everything out is fabulous and, though i know parts of London (i was born there, shopped there as a teen and worked there in the eighties) I've never worked out the order of it if you see what i mean. You are good at this instruction for sure. I worked in The Temple, dive, as a barristers' clerk. Can we see vaguely where that is, or not?
Great pictures. I really wish I had ridden the thing last summer, but not everyone else in my bunch was interested. And 15 pounds may not seem like much, but that's $30 U.S.
Temple tube station is nestled in the trees just across the river on the left hand side of the last aerial photo, Lynn.
I walk past it every day.
The best way to work out where everything is is to be a cheapskate, like me.
Walking everywhere is wonderful. As you know from your Pepys, it only takes an hour or so to wander from Tower Bridge up to Westminster and just about everything you need in London is between the two.
Robyn: Next time you're here let's wander across the river to the Eye and leave the others to mope about while we go for a ride. Hee hee.
Thanks Dive. When i worked there, i do agree i was surprised how walking gets you about. I used to walk from The Temple to Old Bond St. to meet my then husband for a lift home every night. It didn't take long. I was younger then though. You seem an awful lot fitter than i lol i'd hold you back. I tend to drive everywhere now. Shame really. When i was a teen i had a boyfriend who knew London backwards and we used to go stomping everywhere! I loved it but i was too young and heady really to take it all in. I haven't been back to London for about 8 years probably... :(
Then it's about time you got your walking shoes on and came back to explore it, young lady.
Well, the 'young' certainly helps to get me there! .... giggle...
Dive, I'd love to see a set up shot with the same perspective as your first pic, but with an office scene in it. Or a similar one with a thrash band in full swing.
You forgot us, Dive!! We're coming to visit you in late August and I'm definitely going on the Eye. Lynn can come to London with us and I'm happy to share M.B - so she can have a "gent" to hang on to ('gent' in Aussie speak is a maggot, BTW).
These shots are amazing Dive and have certainly whet my appetite for some high flying. Thank you.
You actually make it sound pretty cool. I don't think I'd really freak out if I'm closed in. 15 quid is about 1200 Indian rupees, which is more than a bit steep for a ferris wheel ride, but heck, if I had enough money to get to London I would have another £15 to spend on this. You'd find Lynn and I hanging on to each other for dear life if it does turn out to be scary after all.
Oh, forgot to mention: awwwesome views!!
Thanks for these pictures, Dive. You know I'm a country mouse and when I need to climb 200m for a stunning view I hoof it up Lose Hill.. but.. These pictures are amazing and if I do overcome my fear of concrete and steel and venture into the big smoke there's no way I'll miss this ride!
I should really make an effort to do that. Been here for 4 years and there are so many places I haven't been - blame it on work!
They get sushi? May I tag along? :D
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These London Eye photos (both sets in both posts) are really superb, Dive. I like your perspective and presentation of the pictures, you seem to see things that a normal touristy type photo won't - it must be your architect's mind.
Nice one!
Aaawwwww.
You're all so sweet.
Mme: Many apologies. I've not forgotten. I'll be there in my capacity as tour guide and general pain in the ass.
More apologies for the lack of detailed replies. I'm blah this morning, having been up all night watching the spacewalks on NASA TV (I found a widget for it yesterday and got seriously hooked, dammit!).
Your photos are great Dive!
I wanna go, I wanna go!
Cool! C'mon then.
That's my cup of Earl Grey tea.
Will you also supply a "throw up bag" because I kid you not, I get sick as a dog on anything like this and I don't care if one supposedly doesn't feel the height. I will feel the height, I just know this.
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