London III - The City at Night

Have I said that I loved London?

Some things are worth repeating, I guess.

The night we arrived in London and took the train from the airport into the city, I became aware of that 'feeling' I get in cities at night. I just loved it.

So here, I'll post some of the photos I took in the evening whilst in London.

Having been in Covent Garden, and having had something to eat, we took a wee wander around Chinatown. It looked so pretty at night.

We didn't have dessert in the first restaurant because we planned to head to ...

Yep, we headed here for our ice-cream, only to be met with this sign in the window:

WHAT?! 

Er.... WHAT?!?! How could they? Did they not know I was coming? Oh well, I didn't exactly starve: I had a beautiful crepe with chocolate sauce, strawberries, strawberry ice-cream and toffee ice-cream.

Yum. Yum.

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Another evening - oh, hang on - it may have been the Haagen-Dazs evening. Food muddles my brain, but it matters not.... one of the nights we were there, we were getting ready to head home when we decided to take a detour just so we could see the following two sights at night.

I'm telling you ... coming up from the tube at Westminster, and walking onto the pavement to be met by this sight was absolutely worth the hour less in bed.

I have to admit to being blown away. Even speechless (hard as that is to imagine).

I loved London. I loved the city at night. And I loved seeing our Houses of Parliament with the clock tower and Big Ben all lit up. Sadly, I wasn't there to hear the midnight chimes, but we did hear the 11.30 ones. 

De-lightful!

When I made a 180 degree turn from taking the above photo ...

... this is what I saw. 

The London Eye - lit up at night and very beautiful.

This giant Ferris wheel was opened in 1999, and I believe it's one of the most popular visitor sites in the UK. Apparently on a clear day, you can see for a distance of 26 miles from the top. Sadly, we didn't have time to go on it, but it was worth making the effort to see it at night.

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One more night-time-in-London

On Thursday evening, we were at Horseguards Parade for the Beating Retreat ceremony. 

I can't tell you how much we enjoyed this experience.

The event warrants a separate blog post, so for now I will only post these two photos. The first photo shows  a 'horse' from the War Horse play. His entrance was accompanied by music from the Mounted Bands of the Household Cavalry and the song Only Remembered, sung by a solo singer.

The second photo shows the Mounted Band and Musical Ride from the Royal Cavalry of Oman. Male and female riders gave such a display of elegance and beauty. It really was breathtaking.

There really is something about nighttime in a bustling city. I suppose the last time I really experienced this was in Glasgow's West End many moons ago, before babies took over my life. Of course, y'all know me well enough to know that I wouldn't choose to live back in a city, but I did love experiencing the hustle and bustle of city life last week.

I loved it far more than I'd expected to.