Beyond your wildest imagination

London keeps amazing me with endless possibilities and ideas beyond my wildest imagination.

Traffic-free London

You think that's impossible? Very much possible.
Last weekend I spent in a traffic-free and transport-free central London, visiting beautiful parks and riding a bicycle.

Every year the City of London organises a transport-free weekend called Prudential Ride (that is yet another word I have never heard before). The centre of the city is closed for any transport except Underground, and opened for cyclists. All roads are free to ride and thousands of people mount thousands of bikes and merrily cycle around the empty streets. There are two main routes set up, both of them are pretty sightseeing, so you get it all - enjoy the city without engines and sirens, get a workout and see many major landmarks of London including St Paul's Cathedral, London Tower, Tower bridge, London bridge, Big Ben and many others.

I was in the city with my friend and we didn't plan on cycling. But the sight of people passing by, honking and cheering under the bridges (to get a loud echo in the otherwise totally quiet city) was contagious, so we hopped on a Barclay Bike and went along.

Cycling station next to St. Paul

All ages, all bike sizes 

"Abandoned" city

At some places the city seemed abandoned - streets empty and strangely quiet. On several crossroads there were even musicians - drummers - filling the air with a strong rhythm - maybe one of the reasons was indeed to dissolve the unusual silence. To me both the silence and the nice live rhythm were enjoyable. After a short ride we reached the Tower of London, where a huge exposition of ceramic red poppies is set up as a symbol of blood shed during the World War I. The sight is amazing:

There are 888, 246 poppies - one for each British soldier who died in WWI. The exposition will stay for some time and then every flower (which is said to be unique in shape and form) will be sold for 25 pounds. 

Night with the dinosaurs

Having enjoyed the sight we cycled back to the centre of the Central London and left the bikes at docking stations. Next we explored the famous Natural History Museum, which turned upside down my idea about history museums. This one seemed more like history-geology-geography-biology-anatomy-social science museum and it will take many weekends to explore it all - it is simply HUGE.
Luckily the entrance is officially free. You are kindly asked to provide a small donation of 3 pounds, but noone checks whether you donated or not. It is totally up to you. I marked this museum as a source of weekly exploring - one section at a time, plus numerous exhibitions. You can even stay for the night in Natural History Museum - sleeping next to the dinosaurs.

Music for the masses

Before we entered the Natural History Museum we passed the beautiful Albert Memorial and the Royal Albert Hall next to the Hyde Park.

Albert Monument

Albert Hall didn't impress me from the outside, so I didn't take any pictures of it, but next Friday I went to listen to BBC Proms in the Albert Hall. I am not a big fan of the classical music, but the hall itself impressed me very much:

Albert Hall from the inside

The hall is almost totally empty inside. All the seats are organized into 7-10 rows of circles along the walls one upon another. We sat in the upper circle, on the 5th row and although I have no fear of heights, I felt uneasy "hanging" from the wall in a colossal circular hall with high ceilings. The acoustics was amazing. If someone coughed at the other side of the hall, everyone heard it.

BBC Proms tradition itself starts from some old times, when British government decided to join poorer people to the classical music and sponsored regular concerts previously affordable only by rich people, to everyone. The tickets to the floor for BBC Proms concert cost as little as 5 pounds. You do not have chairs to sit on, but people just stand or even lie down and enjoy the music. The same 5 pounds is the standing gallery on the very top with a beautiful view over the whole hall. The rest of the tickets vary in price, but still affordable. We sat on the upper circle to the side of the stage and the ticket cost me 14 pounds. 

Besides the impressions from the museum and Albert Hall, I must say the Kensington area with the "Museum Street" and Albert Hall is incredibly nice, below is just one example of nice curvy building.