Boat Tour to Richmond (UK)

Today we are going on a boat tour!! Down to Richmond (the UK one... not the suburb of Vancouver). That's the London Eye in the background... maybe we'll get there too on this trip.

We are waiting for our boat... and Leo wanted to point out something of interest...

 One of the large lion head statues where boats used to tie up... beary nice!

Ooh... is that our boat??? Looks fancy!

Nope... was not our boat... but this... is... our... boat... hmmmm... looks... old!

But it looks safe enough... we think...

Turns out it was one of the "little boats" that took part in the evacuation of Allied soldiers off the beaches of Dunkirk in 1940. Betcha that new boat we saw doesn't have a history like that...

And we're off... up the river... with the tide. We got so confused because the tide was flowing upstream which made the river look like it was flowing upstream. That's Big Ben shrouded in scaffolding...

And Westminster Bridge coming up...

And the houses of Parliament (there's two!).

Being on a boat means we got to see things from a very different angle. That culvert is where one of the "lost" (forced underground) rivers of London comes out!

Lots of houseboats along here... very, very pricey! Even moorage fees are ridiculous (£50,000/year - just for mooring!!)

This is an old power station... uh... let me look up the name... Lots Road Power Station... it's being turned into something but the boat guy didn't know what...

That little boat also took part in the Dunkirk evacuation!

We eventually had to move inside cause even though the sun was shining the breeze was freezing!!!

We still got a good view though.

And we're in Richmond!! We had lunch (no pics) and explored a bit (no pics) and then caught the Tube back to South Kensington (no pics!).

And stopped here at Royal Albert Hall!!! Step away from the photo please...

There we go... it looks super cool!

... and after some discussion, we decided to buy tickets and go on a tour inside.

Do you ever feel like you're being watched?

These are the Maestro's and one of them will be our tour guide today...

Ooohh... ahhhh!!! Wow!!! It was quite fabulous inside. We got to go into the box next to the Royal Box (ooohhh aaahhhh!). Those funny things on the ceiling are acoustic buffers or something. Apparently when it was built by Queen Victoria, they didn't think about sound quality and the place has a horrible echo... the upside down mushroom things help a bit with that.

Apparently they can make that oval floor area into a lake... that would be cool...

There were some musicians practising... you can't quite see it but there's an organ above them with 10,000 pipes.... (minus one - only 9,999 pipes). The biggest one is 2 feet in diameter and 42 feet tall! The smallest one is the size of a drinking straw. When it was built in 1871, it was the largest instrument in the world and described as "the voice of Jupiter". Apparently, when it plays, the whole place vibrates... can only imagine...

And we were so pooped... we just fell into bed after dinner at Pizza Express... seriously yummy! (burp)