Full-On Tourist Day (Part 5) - Tuesday, 18 May 2010

The Victoria Embankment

By the time I’d finished at the OXO Tower, I was pretty beat and ready to head home. Home is on the other side of the river from the OXO Tower, so I decided to walk across the Blackfriars Bridge to get to the closest Tube station, also known as Blackfriars. But first, I took a photo of the crest of a now-defunct railway that used to run across the bridge:

London Chatham and Dover Railway Crest on Blackfriars Bridge

Across the river is a road called The Victoria Embankment, which is full of huge, stately buildings. After changing names about 4 times, this road intersects with the Vauxhall Bridge Road, the main street of my neighborhood. Here’s a shot from across the river, looking from the Southside to the North.

The Victoria Embankment at Blackfriars Bridge, Seen from the South Bank

It was lovely, crossing the bridge. I really felt like I was in London just then.  Gazing out over the water, thinking about all the people that have trod there before me, and all who will walk in my footsteps. There was something comforting in the sense of continuity, of being in the middle of a footbridge across not only the river that defines London, but the river of Time itself. 

Nearing the Embankment from the Blackfriars Bridge

Once across, I was next to these immense structures, gawking like the tourist I am at the gorgeous detail. One building had images that reminded me of Egyptian hieroglyphs, and the building was large enough to invoke the scale of pharaohs’ edifices.

Detail on a Huge Building on the Victoria Embankment

Closeup of Egyptian-Looking Detail on Victoria Embankment Building

Okay, so now I’m really, really tired, and trying to find the Blackfriars Tube station. It’s at one of those massive roundabouts, with an underpass that has signs to the Underground. Except that once again, I went ‘round and ‘round, looking for the actual station entrance, but ending up right back where I started. I wasn’t the only one, though. A few other people seemed just as confused. I finally crossed the street and asked a young man if he knew how to get to the Tube. He told me that Blackfriars station is closed until 2012, and that I’d have to walk down the Victoria Embankment “…for just 5 minutes, luv, really, it’s quite close.” I thanked him, but sighed. When a Londoner tells you something is only a 5-minute walk away, they mean a mile. I don’t know if they can walk a mile in 5 minutes, but it takes me 20. And that’s on a good day, when I haven’t already been out walking for more than 4 hours and have aching feet.  But at least it’s a fantastically beautiful mile, with buildings and the river and trees. And buses, taxis, cars, lorries, motorbikes, tourist coaches, and every other type of motorized convenience you can think of.

I am, as usual, amazed at the civil engineering. And not just of making a huge, impressively beautiful buildings, and at those buildings having withstood fires, bombings, pollution, etc, but I was also blown away by when it was all built.  From what I’ve read, most of it was planned and constructed between 1865-70. I thought about what building technology was available then. That was around the time the American Civil War was happening.  As far as warfare, there were cannons and badly functioning rifles and pistols. As far as building equipment, I guess there were barges and trains to transport materials and steam-powered engines to maybe power the cranes.  From my research, it seems that they had to narrow the river at that point, so they had to buy up and demolish a lot of the expensive homes and buildings that were already there. How does one narrow a major tidal river? Well, I guess one doesn’t do it, but massive teams of engineers and laborers do.  Anyway, suffice it to say that I was impressed. Yes, there are much older buildings, as I’ve shown in this blog, and those were built with even less technology. But they also took hundreds of years to complete some of the major monuments and cathedrals, and these buildings were done in  a mere 5 years.  The BART takes longer than that to add a spur to the airport!

Huge, Gorgeous Building on the Victoria Embankment

More Massive, Lovely Architecture on the Victoria Embankment

A Street Off the Victoria Embankment

Archway to the River Side of the Victoria Embankment

Finally, I made it to the Tube station, and then home. It took me a bit longer than usual to make it up those 65 stairs to what I now realize is the 5^th floor (they don’t count the ground floor when they tell you how many floors up a place is.)  After eating some dinner, I sat in one place all night, unable to think about getting on my feet again. Whew!  This certainly was a full-on tourist day!!  And it's taken me almost as long to do the blog entries for it as it did to experience the day. Ha!