London Trip Day 2 - London City - Part 2

Rested for a while along the bankside, we headed to the next visiting place, the Tower Bridge. Before we visited this bridge, we thought it was London Bridge. Because this bridge is a real icon of London. Actually, London Bridge is a real old bridge that is not that iconic as that of Tower Bridge. And at the time we walked along the bankside, we did pass by London Bridge. The bridge was under maintenance. Thus, we did not go up and take a look.

Now back to the Tower Bridge. I think the bridge was named as is because it connects to the Tower of London. The bridge is quite nice and huge. It acts as a gate and is firmly fixed by 2 towers. This 2 towers are the visiting sites for tourists. We could use London Pass to get in. There is another ironic bridge links the upper part of the 2 towers. Tourists can pass through and oversee the whole London city. It's really a nice place to go. There is an exhibition room that shows a huge bump that is responsible to control the bridge to open and close like a gate. Of course that bump is a replica. It gives us a feel like a product after industrial revolution.

Walked through the bridge, we headed to Tower of London. It is an old castle that is not functional now. It acts as a museum of ancient British military. Also, London Pass would let you in. Before we enter the castle, we had to eat something as it was after lunch time. We bought a pie from the chained pie and cake shop 'Paul'. Yes, my name, but not my chain store. We found a bench, sat and ate there. The pie was not that good. Maybe it was not reheated. Anyway, just a lunch. We then entered the castle.

There were huge number of tourists inside. There provided guides to tell visitors stories about the castle. We did not join any of them. Since we got not much time as the castle would be closed at 5:00pm. We only got 2 to 3 hours left. The castle is quite large and got several sections. Each section is separated by a tower. And each tower got its own exhibition hall with different theme. I couldn't remember all of them. The most impressive one is the 5 storeys tall tower in the middle of the castle. It was an arsenal in the ancient time. It is now a huge exhibition hall that demonstrate different purposes of each storey. Very interesting and worth to see. I was the first time to see so much weapons and they all are made with fine details decorations. Some of them are scary. Still, very interesting for me.

After 5:00pm, the castle closed. We walked towards the center of commercial area. There is a magnificent building that was designed by an British architect, Norman Forster. Mr. Forster designed lots of modern buildings including the previous HSBC headquarter tower in Hong Kong and the Hong Kong International Airport. The building that is standing in the London's commercial area is another commercial building. Something different from Mr. Forster's usual style. It appears as a bullet, which is pointing up into the sky. The outline is quite curvy. Still, when you see it's detail outlines, it was consisted by lots of triangles. This makes it look very modern and charming. That's why I decided to walk into the center of the commercial area and have a closer look to it. It is really an amazing masterpiece. The building names Gherkin, locates in St Mary Axe street.

Luckily, that day was a Sunday. Not much people in the commercial area. Walking there was quite comfortable. Although it is a commercial area, there were not much tall buildings. That is very different from that of Hong Kong. That's why we said it was comfortable to walk around there. After that, we took bus back to hotel and ended the tour in Day 2.