Yeah, I know, I suck. Well, you have no idea how time consuming writing this blog can be, and while it's fun to write down all my experiences, it's also fun to sleep, so it's becoming very hard to find the time to write. But anyway, I'll do my best, even though London was so long ago, it almost seems like an entirely different trip, I'm not sure I remember everything. Maybe I'll just summarize the best parts and move on. We'll see.

I'll start with something different. Some people have asked me what Viadera means. Well, from Wikipedia -"The viadera was a lyric genre of Catalan and Occitan literature invented by the troubadours. It was a dance song devised to lighten the burden of a long voyage or to enliven the trip".

I thought it was kind of cool and appropriate, hence the name of the blog.

Ok, so back to London. I'll just make a list of the best things, hopefully it'll be shorter than a full description.

1. The City of London.

Wait, what? Do you mean ALL of London? No, I do not. The City is actually just a quarter inside the bigger London. It has it's own mayor and council, but it's also a part of London. It's also the oldest part of the city. In fact, through all of history, when people talked about London, this is what they meant. This is where Shakespeare wrote all of his plays, where Charles Dickens drank beer in dark smokey pubs and where William Wallace was hanged, drawn and quartered (if you're interested, here's a very short video explaining why the hell there's a City of London inside the City of London - The (Secret) City of London, Part 1: History there's also one about the government of the City of London, but I think it's a bit less interesting).

This marker signifies the beginning of The City. If the queen wants to cross this marker, she needs to ask permission from the Lord Mayor

The thing about The City is that it's actually not that old. 

The 17th century was apparently a very bad time to live in England, and in London in particular. after the civil war, Bubonic Plague struck the city. In 1666 a fire started in a bakery, and then it continued to burn for 3 days, destroying most of the city. It was actually a pretty good thing in a way, since only 9 people died in the fire itself, and it cleaned the city from the Plague.

Later, the city was rebuilt entirely, using more or less the same city plan, so the streets are still narrow and medieval in spirit, even though the buildings are all built of concrete today, instead of wood. Today, The City is the commercial center of London. Most large banks have their headquarters here, and in fact only about 7000 people actually live here. During the day, though, The City is full of lawyers, newspaper reporters, and bankers.

Why is it cool? well, even though it's not that old, it still has the spirit of medieval London. And it is still the same city that so many poets and authors lived in in the 18th, 19th and 20th century. It is pretty cool indeed.

A street in The City. Sort of medieval-ish.

2. St. Paul's Cathedral

St. Paul's was always an important church. Ever since it was built in the 8th century, it has been the central church of London. The current building, however, is, of course, not that old. As I said earlier, the entire city went up in flames in 1666, St. Paul's included. After the fire a very important architect called Christopher Wren was hired to rebuild the cathedral. Wren was a very well known Architect and Astronomer at that time (actually, they say some of his astronomical research was later used by Newton as a basis for his theories), and St. Paul's is his greatest and most well known work. It is also one of the only Cathedrals in the world that the architect who designed them was alive at the time they were completed.

It is an incredibly impressive building. The best part, though, isn't the interior, even though it is indeed magnificent (especially the dome, which is really a masterpiece), but the view from the top.

If you want, you can ascend up the dome of the cathedral, step out into a small balcony and watch the jaw dropping view.

Being in a very very bad shape, you can understand why I wasn't exactly enthusiastic about going up 500 and something steps, but I did it, and I'm glad I did.

St. Paul's Cathedral. It's really kind of hard to take a picture of all of it

The view from the top of St. Paul

(Here's an anecdote - I got to the cathedral kind of late, so by the time I got up the stairs and down again, they were already preparing the evening service - a choral Evensong, so some parts of the cathedral was closed and they took away my audio guide. I had to sit and wait for the service to begin, Which I did. I found a seat in the first row, so I can hear the choir better, and right in front of me there were two priests whose jobs were to stop tourists from going any further into the church. One of those priests had, unfortunately, the worst lisp I had ever heard. Such an awful job for her, I actually felt bad for her. She had to stand there and repeatedly say: "Are you here for the therviceeeee?". It was both funny and sad in the same time).

3. A Shakespeare play in The Globe.

I tried reading Hamlet once. I didn't really understand much. But when I saw that a ticket to a play costs only 5 pounds (!) I said, "what the hell", and went for it.

Now, The Globe is actually quite an historic building. The current building is a reconstruction of the original Globe, which stood in the same place and was the theater in which most of Shakespeare's plays were presented. 

The play I went to see was called Titus Andronicus. Not exactly Shakespeare's most well known work, and I had to stand for the entire 3 hours of the play, and I only understood about 40% of what was being said. But it only cost 5 pounds! And it was amazing. The production was very professional, the actors were amazing, and the whole atmosphere was so authentic, I didn't even notice my aching feet and I actually understood all of the plot.

The Globe. This is an illegal picture. I wasn't supposed to take pictures, apparently

4. Regent's Canal and Regent's Park.

It was one of those things that if I was with someone else I would probably hate, but since I was alone I actually liked. When I'm travelling, I tend to be optimistic and try to look at the bright side of things. Usually, if I'm with other people, they balance me out, and listening to them complaining makes me doubt my own impressions.

It was a very long walk. I took the Tube to a place called Little Venice. I had a lot of time, and I've already seen everything I wanted to see in London, so I decided to check it out. Saying it was underwhelming is somewhat an understatement. There was a nice canal going through the streets. and some boats, but not much more than that. It wasn't exceptionally pretty or interesting. Having nothing else to do, I decided to keep walking along it. I walked and walked and walked.

After a while, the canal bends away from the road and I was forced to get off the street to follow it. It was surrounded by somewhat old and neglected neighborhoods, but I thought it was peaceful and even beautiful in a way. I kept walking and after crossing under a graffiti covered bridge, the old neighborhoods suddenly became huge mansions. It was a bit unexpected.

A huge mansion. Why didn't those guys think about it?

After yet more walking, the canal poured into a small lake in Regent's Park. A nice little park, with lots of flowers and nice places to sit, which would have been nice after so much walking if it wasn't raining.

Of course, being the philosophical dude that I am, I thought it was a journey. A lesson in patience and seeing beauty in different things. Again, if I was with other people, I would probably have hated it.

By the way, close to Regent's Park, there's another small park called Primrose Hill, which is the highest hill in London. It's nice because if you can force yourself to climb it, there's a very nice view. As I said, by then it was raining quite badly so I couldn't really stay for long.

5. Windsor Castle.

While not actually in London, it is a very common day-trip from London, since it's only about an hour away by train.

It was a very nice day. No rain, no clouds, it wasn't so cold. A perfect day for exploring. The castle itself was very impressive, as castles should be. Of course, it has lots of history. It was build by William The Conqueror (like a lot of castles in England), and is still used as a Royal residence to this day, making it the oldest castle in the world that is still in use.

The Round Tower of Windsor Castle. The flag means that the Queen was there

The coolest part was St George's Chapel. This needs a bit of explaining. That morning I also visited Westminster Abbey. As you can see, it's not part of this Best Of... list. The reason for that is that for the money it cost, they Abbey was a bit of a disappointment for me. Sure, it's one of the most history-filled buildings in the world. Kings, queens, world class scientists, authors and poets are buried there. The problem is that there are just too many graves, too many tombstones, too many memorials, too many plaques. It feels like you can't breath in there, every centimeter of the floor and walls is covered with some grave.

Since it was one of the places I wanted to visit the most, I was a bit depressed about this. But then I went to Windsor, and St. George's was all I wanted from Westminster and didn't get.

It's a 15th century chapel, and the home church of the order of the Knights of the Garter, which is the second most prestigious order in Britain, and also the oldest. 

The architecture is amazing. The fan vaulting is incredible and you certainly get a sort of feeling of awe walking in. And then there's the Quire.

For those of you who don't really know anything about church architecture, the Quire (also called simply the Choir in catholic churches) is the part of the church in which the choir and clergy sit during services. The thing about St George's Quire is that it's the heart of the Knights of the Garter order. The banners of all the current members of the order are hanged on the walls (among which, the imperial flag of japan, indicating that the Emperor of Japan is a Knight of the Garter), above crowned helmets and half drawn swords, signifying that the knight is prepared to defend his queen.

Once a member of the order die, another is elected to replace him, but the emblem of the deceased isn't removed from the chapel. Instead, they make a little plaque with his emblem and hang it on one of the chairs in the Quire. This means that all the chairs are covered with hundreds of emblems, some of them going back to the 14th century. 

The Quire of St. George Chapel. I was sure I had a picture of it, but apparently I don't, so this is a picture from Wikipedia. Thanks Wikipedia!

That's it for London. There were a lot more things that I saw and did, but I really don't want to bore you with ALL the details.

Next time I'll be writing about Bath and all the cool day-trips I did from there, so stay tuned. Also, if you liked this post, don't be shy, leave a comment, I'd like to know what you think about it.

Until next time, stay cool and don't forget to mind the gap,

Lior