London: Nov 16: Tower Bridge

It was foggy Tuesday morning. This made it even more surprising that when I looked outside in early afternoon, I saw a clear sky, clearer than five out of six days in London this time of year. The sun was out and there were patches and swathes of blue in the sky.

Hence, I decided to make Tuesday my Tower Bridge day. I'd been planning for weeks to go to Tower Bridge and was only awaiting for a clear day.

I took many pictures on this excursion. They--not this blog post--have the highlights of the afternoon's outing. Some of the pictures, though they still look decent, are reminders that London doesn't really have a skyline.

The Tower Bridge is a striking neo-gothic structure of granite, stone, and steel, just over a century old. I mainly went to see it and see its views over London from the upper pedestrian walkway. I was sad to find that the walkways were enclosed in glass, but relieved when I discovered a few openings are wide enough to stick a camera out. On the plus side, being enclosed meant that the walkways are heated.

The Tower Bridge walkway contains three exhibits, all of which I liked. One is about the bridge itself; the most interesting sections of this exhibit describe stunts on the bridge (motorcycles over the bridge, planes flying through the bridge) and alternate designs (some normal bridges, some weird ones with elevators for cars or with canal-like locks). Another exhibit shows pictures of and information about other famous bridges (including this one I saw in Shanghai, though most bridges it covers are big, expensive ones). There are many impressive, pretty bridges that I never heard of before. A third exhibit shows other things on the Thames.

I also got to see the bridge's engine room, which was neat because of the size of the machinery within. The signs in the engine exhibit are written as if they're designed to teach physics to kids.