London

Toured the Houses of Parliament today, somewhat lucky, as parliament has been recalled for Friday to discuss Iraq issue. No tours available when parliament is sitting!

Tour went from one end of the Palace of Westminster to the other, the robing room of the House of Lords, through to the House of Commons. Not allowed to take photos anywhere in the building other than Westminster hall sadly, the most common adjective walking through was "wow!"

More traipsing about on the underground afterwards. It is amazingly impressive! Lines go here there and everywhere. Trains rock up ever two minutes or so. More often than not you walk onto a platform and there's a train arriving. However for some of the 'interchange' stations, calling them that is a bit of a stretch. Given many of the lines were built by different companies, it can be a decent walk from one line to another in the 'same' station. Lots of stairs and tunnels. My nearest tube station is Russell square, which has two lifts and one set of stairs. There are many warnings about avoiding the stairs, as they are the equivalent to a 15 storey building. With it being so far underground, you can see why stations like this were used as bomb shelters in world war 2.

In the afternoon, took the tube out to North Greenwich, and rode the Emirates air line, a cable car stretching across the Thames. It goes bloody high! Then jumped on the driverless docklands light railway, which is reminiscent of a sedate roller coaster as the tracks wind and weave up and around buildings. Sitting at the front was a novel experience.

Wandered around the Tower of London, crossed tower bridge (impressive) walked across London bridge (not impressive, 1970s rebuild) then took a river cruise back up the Thames to Westminster, eyeing off the London eye. Pondering a trip on that tomorrow!