London day out – Spring in April 09

One weekend when the sun was shining, the sunglasses were out, and when there were more shirtless pasty men around than would be pleasant, we decided to take a boat trip down the River Thames. Usually, we just get the Tube, but when the weather is so fantastic, the boat is not a bad option (it’s about £3-ish with the Oyster).

As we had a leisurely scuttle to the pier, we saw lots of people enjoying the sunshine; some were having a romantic stroll with their partners, some were listening to their Ipods jogging by the river, and some were just having a snooze on the bench.

As we got to Embankment (near Charing Cross in London), I decided that it’d be a good idea to take pictures of Embankment Park. This is a park which I go through quite frequently in the week, and the scenery in there is beautiful.

Just for novelty’s sake. In London, you have to have a picture of the red phone box.

The scene at Embankment Pier, just before getting into Embankment station.

Look at those pretty flowers, looking even prettier in the fantastic sunshine. I don’t usually take pictures of flowers, but recently, alot of the blogs I’ve been reading seem to have flowers featured on them, so bandwagon, here I come.

On days like these, the shops are empty, and the green parks are full of people enjoying the sunshine.

Something about sunshine, parks and people wanting to sit down.

Before I’d ever seen London, I had my own images of Covent Garden and what it’d be like. Most of these images were formed from computer games (one detective one based in London) so most people wore tweed and Guy Ritchie style clothes. In addition to speaking in dodgy English accents (EA games weren’t so good with their accents), alot of the clues were to be found in places of great significance, ie museums.

When I then got to Covent Garden for the first time and realised that no one actually wore tweed (except Guy Ritchie who still seems to be wearing it now and again), Covent Garden then became another tourist attraction in London, albeit one that has lots and lots of cobbled paths, trishaws and people pretending to be trees.

There are lots of trishaws in London, more so in Chinatown. Some of them charge a bargain price of £10 for 200 metres, which is why this guy is getting more out of chatting with the girls than potential customers.