London Day 6: South Bank & Theatre District

We started our 2nd Anniversary at St. Paul's Cathedral. Some time after the old St Paul’s – which was a wooden structure – was burnt to the ground in the great fire of London (1666), Sir Christopher Wren was asked to design a new building. We climbed up to the highest galleries of the dome to get an amazing view of the city.

Next, we crossed the Millennium footbridge (known as the wobbly bridge because of its rather alarming tendency to sway on first opening – sadly this feature has been greatly reduced with dampners since then) to Tate Modern. In one of the most stunning architectural feats of recent times, the Bankside power station was converted into a gallery to house the Tate’s growing collection of post 19th Century Art. The turbine hall – which was left intact – itself is worth the visit to the gallery.

After a quick lunch, we took a short stroll east along the river to the Globe Theatre. This theatre is often referred to as ‘Shakespeare’s Globe’ because of its strong association with the playwright. The building he knew was burnt down after a particularly rousing production involving real canons. But in the 1990s, renowned director, Sam Wanamaker, realised his dream of reconstructing the theatre. Built entirely in traditional materials (with a couple of exceptions for modern fire regulations etc.) and using traditional methods, the building is as much a centre of education, helping people explore traditional methods not only of construction, but also of production, as it is a museum and a working theatre.

We visited the Britain Wartime Museum which is a place where you can experience what it was like for Londoner's to use the Underground as a bomb shelter, what a victory garden was, how rationing worked and many other interesting 1940’s era facts about the city. In fact, we were looking for the Churchill Museum, but by the time we realized our error it was too late to visit the correct one.

Then it was off for a trip on the London Eye. Another really good Millennium project, the Eye is a big bicycle wheel that takes you in a ‘capsule’ high above the city for amazing views. It’s owned by BA, which means that there is some slightly annoying airline vocabulary to put up with (a trip is called a ‘flight’, for example).

A great dinner in the theatre district at The Porcupine (a local pub) and then we went to enjoy our London show: We Will Rock You (the tribute musical to the rock group Queen). It was great fun, fantastic singers and of course great music =). You can see our pictures of London here.