Keskiviikko 25.5.

Heippa!

Aamulla saimme yllätysherätyksen 5.40. =) Vielä piti muistaa viimeisetkin kellot siirtää Greenwichin aikaan. Aamupalan jälkeen lähdimme koluamaan Oxford Streetin kauppoja.

Melkein kaikille taisi sieltä tarttua matkaan jotakin kivaa. Tänää metron kotilinjamme Jubilee line:lla oli jotain teknistä häikkää, joten jouduimme käyttämään kiertoteitä päästäksemme

takaisin Suomen Merimieskirkkoon. Illalla lähdimme tutustumaan Lontooseen linnun

silmin. London Eye:stä avautui huikeat näkymät kaupungin ylle. Pääsimme myös lyhyeen 4D esitykseen, jossa valkokangas näkyi kolmiulotteisena ja saimme päällemme jopa hieman vettä. Oli oikein mukava päivä. :P

Tiistai 24.5.

kuva maanantailta
kuva keskiviikolta

Aamulla klo 9.oo lähdimme kiertoajelulle, jossa oli mukana suomalainen opas. Kiersimme Lontoon nähtävyyksiä ja näimme mm. Tower Bridgen (rakennettu 1862), London Eyen, Big Benin ja Westminster Abbeyn. Opimme, että Lontoossa on 32 kuntaa, joilla on itsehallinto. Kiertoajelu kesti neljä tuntia ja kävimme syömässä Walkers Wine & Ale baarissa. Ostettuamme metroliput, suuntasimme Harrodsille. Samalla kävimme myös muissa lähiympäristön liikkeissä. Tämän jälkeen tulimme päivälliselle merimieskirkolle. Illalla kävimme vielä Tescossa.

lontoo blogi

tässä vähän kuvia lyseolaisten matkasta Lontooseen

tunnelmia bussissa matkalla tampereen lentokentälle

kuvia lennolta

matkan pienempiäkin alkoi väsyttää lennon aikana

Hyde Park

Hyde Park is one of the largest parks in central London and it's also one of the Royal Parks of London.

It's famous for its Speaker's Corner, where anyone can speak on any subject.

Hyde Park covers 142 hectares (350 acres) and Kensington Gardens covers 111 hectares (275 acres), giving an overall area of 253 hectares (625 acres)

Sites of interest in the park include Speaker's Corner (located in the northeast corner near Marble Arch), close to the former site of the Tyburn gallows, and Rotten Row, which is the northern boundary of the site of the Crystal Palace.

History

Henry VIII acquired Hyde Park from the monks of Westminster Abbey in 1536; he and his court were often to be seen on thundering steeds in the hunt for deer.

It was Charles I who changed the nature of the park completely. He had the Ring (north of the present Serpentine boathouses) created and in 1637 opened the park to the general public.
Towards the end of the 17th century William III moved his court to Kensington Palace.

Hyde Park became a venue for national celebrations. In 1814 the Prince Regent organised fireworks to mark the end of the Napoleonic Wars, in 1851 the Great Exhibition was held and in 1977 a Silver Jubilee Exhibition was held in honour of Queen Elizabeth II's 25 years on the throne.

Events

For example Jethro Tull, The Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd and Bon Jovi have played in Hyde Park.
For the 2012 Summer Olympics, the park will host the triathlon and the 10 km open water swimming events. The park is also planning on holding the 2012 Iron Man competition.

London Transport Museum

The London Transport Museum, or LT Museum based in Covent Garden, seeks to conserve and explain the transport heritage of Britain's capital city. The majority of the museum's exhibits originated in the collection of London Transport, but, since the creation of Transport for London (TfL) in 2000, the remit of the museum has expanded to cover all aspects of transportation in the city.

The museum's main facility is located in a Victorian iron and glass building that originally formed part of the Covent Garden vegetable, fruit and flower market. It was designed as a dedicated flower market by William Rogers in 1871 and is located between Russell Street, Tavistock Street, Wellington Street and the east side of the former market square. The market moved out in 1971, and the building was first occupied by the London Transport Museum in 1980. Previously the collection had been located at Syon Park since 1973 and before that had formed part of the British Transport Museum at Clapham.

The entrance to the museum is from the Covent Garden Piazza, amongst the Piazza's many tourist attractions. The museum is within walking distance from both Covent Garden tube station and Charing Cross railway station^.

The first parts of the collection were brought together at the beginning of the 20th century by the London General Omnibus Company (LGOC) when it began to preserve buses being retired from service. After the LGOC was taken over by the London Electric Railway (LER), the collection was expanded to include rail vehicles. It continued to expand after the LER became part of the London Passenger Transport Board in the 1930s and as the organization passed through various successor bodies up to TfL, London's current transport authority.

The collection has had a number of homes. It was housed as part of the Museum of British Transport at a disused tram depot in Clapham High Street (now a supermarket) from 1963 to 1972, and then in Brentford from 1973 to 1977, before being moved to Covent Garden in 1980. Most of the other exhibits moved to York on formation of the National Railway Museum in 1975.

The Covent Garden building has on display many examples of buses, trams, trolleybuses and rail vehicles from 19th and 20th centuries as well as artifacts and exhibits related to the operation and marketing of passenger services and the impact that the developing transport network has had on the city and its population.

Harrods

Harrods is a leading department store located on 87-135 Brompton Road in Knightsbridge, in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London. The Harrods brand also applies to other enterprises undertaken by the Harrods group of companies including Harrods Buenos Aires, Harrods Bank, Air Harrods, Harrods Aviation and Harrods Estates. The store occupies 20,000 m² site and has over 90,000 m² of selling space in over 330 departments. The UK's second-biggest shop, Oxford Street's Selfridges, is a little over half the size with 50,000 m² of selling space. The Harrods motto is All Things for All People, Everywhere. Other of its departments, including the seasonal Christmas department and the Food Hall, are world famous. Throughout its history, the store has had a total of five owners. On 8 May 2010, Mohamed Al-Fayed sold the store to Qatar Holdings for £1,5 billion (miljardia).

Services and products
The store's 330 departments offer a large selection of services and products. Products on offer include clothing for every kind of customer (men, women, children, and infants), electronics, jewellery, sporting gear, bridal trousseau, pets and pet accessories, toys, food and drink, health and beauty items, packaged gifts, stationery, housewares, home appliances, furniture, and more. A representative sample of store services includes 32 restaurants, serving everything from high tea to pub food to tapas to haute cuisine, a personal shopping-assistance programme, a watch repair service, a tailor, a dispensing pharmacy, a beauty spa and salon, a barbers shop, Harrods Financial Services, Harrods Bank, Ella Jade Bathroom Planning and Design Service, private events catering and planning, food delivery, a wine steward bespoke "picnic" hampers and gift boxes, bespoke cakes, and bespoke fragrance formulations. Up to 300,000 customers visit the store on peak days, comprising the highest proportion of customers from non-English speaking countries of any department store in London. More than five thousand staff from over fifty different countries work at Harrods. As of the 15 October 2009, Harrods Bank has started selling gold bars and coins that customers can buy. The gold products range from 1 g to 12.5 kg. They also offer storage services. Selling back gold to Harrods is possible in the future.

http://www.harrods.com/

Piccadilly Circus

Piccadilly Circus is a busy plaza in the heart of London at the junction of five major streets: Regent street, Shaftesbury Avenue, Piccadilly and Covent Street. The Circus is close to major shopping and entertainment areas in the West-End. Piccadilly Circus is one of the capital’s most popular meeting places, once it was called ”the hub of the empire”.

The Circus is particularly known for its video display and neon signs mounted on the corner building, as well as the Shaftesbury memorial fountain and statue of an archer popularly known as Eros. Directly underneath the plaza is Piccadilly Circus tube station, which was opened March 10, 1906 on the Bakerloo Line, and on the Piccadilly line on the December of that year.

The Circus was created by John Nash as part of the future King George IV's plan to connect Carlton House - where the Prince Regent resided - with Regent's Park.

Billboards

The creation of the Shaftesbury Avenue in 1885 turned the plaza into a busy traffic junction. This made Piccadilly Circus attractive for advertisers, who installed the first illuminated billboards in London in 1895. For some time the plaza was surrounded by billboards, creating London's version of Times Square, but currently only one building still carries large displays.

Shaftesbury memorial fountain

At the southwestern side of the Circus, moved after World War II from its original position in the centre, stands the Shaftesbury memorial fountain. It was erected in 1892-1893 to commemorate Lord Shaftesbury, a philanthropist known for his support of the poor.

The winged nude statue of an archer on top of the fountain depicts the Angel of Christian Charity but was later renamed Eros after the Greek god of love and beauty. The fountain was made in bronze, but the statue is made of aluminum, at the time a novel and rare material.

The Name - Piccadilly Circus

The name 'Piccadilly' originates from a 17th century frilled collar named piccadil. Roger Baker, a tailor who became rich making piccadils lived in the area. In this context, a circus, from the Latin word meaning ”circle”, is a round open space at a street junction.

- Jasmine ja Elisa