More Pictures From London

The weather has cleared (no more thunderstorms) and now I'll post some more photographs. One thing I noticed on this trip was how low the Thames River flowed. I don't know if it was because of a lack of rainfall, but it was low. I saw several people searching for artifacts along the river's edge and even a few people sunbathing! (please click on any image to enlarge)



The view in this picture is of Southwark Cathedral, located near the London Bridge underground. It is one of the oldest churches in London. I toured the church but did not take any interior photos. There is an archaeological site nearby that shows an old Roman street and various remains of 12-16Th century ruins. A very cool place.



Entrance to Southwark Cathedral



Above is your basic view of the Thames looking toward London Bridge, taken from the Millenium Bridge.
As I walked along the Thames toward the London Eye, I saw a make-shift skate park. I took a video and is posted below. I wished I spent more time here as there were a few pretty good skaters and some kids just having fun.



I will conclude this post with some pictures from the Portobello Market in Notting Hill. Mathias suggested that I venture out to this market on Saturday morning before the ballet performance. He thought I would like it, and he was right! All the tour books suggest that you arrive early Saturday morning in order to get the best deals in antiques and flea market stuff and to beat the hoards of people who come out to browse. I was not too interested in buying so I arrived later in the morning with the rest of humanity. You could hardly walk down the street because of the crowds, but it was an incredible people watching place and prices on antique prints, maps, etc was actually pretty reasonable. One of the best things about this area were the street performers, ranging from a two-woman portable puppeteer theatre, excellent jazz musicians, a classical quartet, and one special guitar hero jammer (see picture below). I will definitely come back here again; there is something for everybody here.





Portobello Market on Saturday morning (click on image to enlarge)



One of the many interesting and unique Portobello vendors. One of my favorite pictures appearing below is of an antiquarian print dealer. His signage was "special" and his prices were pretty reasonable. The butterfly engravings shown in the picture were approximately 30 pounds each ($47) before bartering; I had the same set of images a few years ago and sold mine for about $20-25 plus framing.



Below is the "guitar hero" player with two fellow jammers. I couldn't resist taking this picture. I have a video but I think this picture is better.