Bus Tour Part 2

From St Paul's we entered Cheapside Sreeet which is one of the old market areas.  Each of the streets is named for the items that were traded on it - Leather Street, Milk Steeet, Poultry Street, and so on. Now they are full of offices. At the end is the National Bank of England which prints all the paper currency and stores the national gold reserves. 

 

There are 21 bridges over the Thames. We drove over London Bridge, built in the 1960s because the old one was sold to an American for a million pounds and he moved the bridge to Utah! From here we could see Tower Bridge, which is the most famous bridge by sight. It is the only bridge that opens - it takes 90 seconds to open like a drawbridge. In front of it is the HMS Belfast, which is a naval destroyer and was part of the Normandy invasion and last saw action in Korea. 

 

 

There are two halves of London - the north which is posh and upper crust and south London side is the working class. On the north side is government, parliament, money, banks, churches, and monarchy - rules and regulations. On the south side is the fun! This is the place of the first alehouses in London, the first theaters in London, and other forms of "entertainment." William Shakespeare came from this area as well, living here as an actor. This area is also home to the filming of Bridget Jones Diary, starring two great British actors Hugh Grant and Colin Firth.

We are going to get off the bus near Buckingham Palace and explore that area next!