Sky Garden 12 March 2016

Have you heard about the Sky Garden at 20 Fenchurch - the Walkie-Talkie building? It's that strangely shaped building in the middle of the business centre of London with the public viewing platform on the 35th floor. Anyone can visit by booking on-line but there aren't often places available so when I chanced on a notification that booking was open, I leapt at the opportunity.

On a foggy day Judy and I met up at Victoria Station, another bit of London I hadn't seen yet.

It's always worthwhile looking up as well, you do see quite surprising features such as this golden dancer. It's apparently a replica of a statue of Anna Pavlova on the cupola of the Victoria Palace Theatre. The original was taken down during the Second World War and lost (hmm, I wonder where that ended up?)

After coffee, we hopped on to the Circle Line and headed off to Monument Tube station and, not surprisingly, came across the monument.

To commemorate the Great Fire of London in 1666, it is 61m tall, the exact distance to Pudding Lane where the fire started. It was opened in 1677. Imagine that! It must have dominated the skyline of London in that time. There are 311 steps inside to the viewing platform. Judy wasn't up to going anywhere near that outlook! So many of my friends don't like heights - seems to me I have to do those trips on my own.

As our tickets were for 12pm we had some time to walk around the area. It's an interesting area in that there is so much history interspersed amongst those iconic modern buildings. Weekends are better to explore. I've been here during the week and it is heaving with people, no time to look around or up, nevermind stop and take photos.

St Olave's - this church has obviously had a very interesting history.

Heading back to be in time the building towered over us and they were cleaning the windows. That must be an ongoing chore!

Going into 20 Fenchurch was like going through airport security - check ID against tickets, remove any loose clothing, open bags, go through metal detectors but once through, we were whizzed up to floor 35 in a completely silent elevator. A bit disconcerting! And then, the view ...

It was still very hazy, but nevertheless, spectacular! The gardens are nice but not the main reason to visit. Somebody must have visited Kirstenbosch as there were lots of Strelitzias and cycads.

After lunch we headed down towards the Tower of London which is very close by.

That was heaving with people even though the season has hardly started! Too busy to even think of going in, we headed towards the river and took a Thames Clipper.

It was lovely to sit and watch the world go by. We didn't even get off at Greenwich or the O2 - next time ... It's actually lovely to know that you can leave things till later. I'm really enjoying having the time to explore and go back and re-explore. Before, trips were so rushed trying to see as much as possible in a short time.