London's public boat trip
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Trip via public boat on thames London
I am posting some pictures that I took while me, my dad, wife and friends were on a boat from Embankment to Greenwich and back. Unlike previously, this time it was not a private boat trip. We didn’t have much time to plan a private boat trip and moreover it was costly compared to the public one. When we came out of the Westminster tube station through Exit 1, we saw a huge crowd gathered outside the exit. The London eye and the adjacent London aquarium were all lit up in blue. I think its quite usual for them to be lit up in the evenings. After some minutes we found that the crowd was gathered to watch fireworks near London eye. I guess the fireworks show was taking place in the park near London eye. I didn’t know the occasion though !
Anyway, my wife approached a ticket stall for the boat tickets but the guy at the till said that there were no tickets available due to river closure. Hence we thought of just walking around and showing Big Ben and parliament house etc to Pratik, who was visiting us and London for the first time. However Shruti suggested all of us that we should check some more stalls. And luckily we found 1 stall selling tickets. This stall was near the bridge close to the Embankment tube station. We were 7 of us and got tickets for a round trip from Embankment to Tower and back to Embankment. The tickets were quite cheap. It came out to £11 per person. After waiting for around 20 minutes, the boat official let the queue inside the boat. There was plenty of space to sit in the boat. It was actually a café. However most of the people had gathered outside the café in the open. Since it was the beginning of winters and was quite dark in the evening, we could see everything around the Thames river, lit up and it was very beautiful. I wish I was staying in one of those London holiday apartments on the bank of Thames. The view from a top apartment would be so beautiful. I will do that some day :). So, on the way, we saw Waterloo bridge, London Bridge, Tower Bridge, canary Wharf buildings, The Shard (the tallest building in the European union, once completed), the top of beautifully lit up Saint Paul's Cathedral, a beautifully lit up fighter ship, Greenwich Royal naval College, O2 arena in Greenwich and a lot more. You might be wondering how did we see the places in Greenwich when our boat was only until Tower Bridge ! Well we managed to to it unknowingly. We either got into the wrong boat or we were supposed to get off at Tower Bridge and then take another boat back to Embankment, which we were unaware of. So, we went till Greenwich. However, the ticket checker in the boat in which we returned from Greenwich, allowed us to travel on the tickets we had :). I think many passengers in the boat were regular commuters who travelled from central London to Greenwich. Hence while returning back to Embankment the boat hardly had people in it. We were lucky to get a good opportunity to take pictures with all the famous structures we saw on our way.
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