Cycle Ways: The Thames and Beyond

So far, you have seen the wonders that are the trip from my house to the Thames. From now on, you'll see the North London streets that make up "The Square Mile" (The square mile of London that is the original city back in the baby days of the city)

Here's the view over the bridge, from South to North London:

I cycle over Southwark Bridge, which is between Blackfriars Bridge (to the left) and London Bridge (to the right). I actually really love Southwark Bridge, it might just be my favourite. The reason is that nobody ever seems to use it. It's not very well known, and sometimes in the evening you can be the only person walking over the bridge and looking out over London. I love it.

Here's the view looking to the left of the bridge, you can see St Paul's Cathedral peeking out.

Here's the view to my direct left:



And here's where I felt like a bit of a tourist with other morning commuter cyclists having to swerve around me... The view to the right with Tower Bridge in the background and Canary Wharf to the left in the far background.:



Past the bridge and properly into the square mile, this is the Bank / St. Paul's area of London. Banks Galore! When the G20 was here and there were riots, this area was cordenned off in case of trouble.



Stood at the cyclists / pedestrian crossing looking left towards St. Paul's. See it in the background there? I always use the clock to see if I'm running on time :)



Up on over the crossing, and we're cycling right in the middle of suit-man city. It's difficult at times not to accidentally run one over (because, of course, they always assume that YOU will stop for THEM, because they're wearing a suit and they're very very impotant, don't you know!)

Up ahead the white building is Guildhall.



After that, we ride around a couple of small streets and wend our way onto Moorgate: (Looking North on Moorgate)



And looking back towards Bank...



This is usually a pretty busy road and I have to keep my wits about me, so I didn't take any pictures on this one, I'm afraid. I thought you'd appreciate me being alive to write this post (not really mom, hehe!) Just this one:



Almost there, guys! Just a couple small roads to go, this is the easy part. We make sure to avoid Old Street roundabout, because going through there would just be crazy! So we take the back roads that no-one seems to know about.



One more little crossing. I don't know if they have them in the States, but in London some pedestrian crossings are also used by cyclists.



Here's the road that my work is on - a little courtyard that you can't quite see on the left.



This is a I'm-tired-just-arrived-at-work-need-to-take-a-shower-but-do-this-real-quick-first picture of the courtyard that I work in.



Here is the front door of where I work - looks diddy, doesn't it?



And a sneaky picture of my bike parked up out front:



Well thanks for joining me on this journey through London... hope you enjoyed it!

Soundtrack to this post: Kate Nash and Brigitte Aphrodite