I'm claiming the River Thames for south east London. Or at least half of it. I'm also suggesting that the river cruise my friend Karin booked, one bright sunny Saturday, was a south east London experience. We'll forget about boarding at Tower Hill, simply a means to an end, because once on board, the riverside revelations from the crew were all 'sarf' as they come.
The great thing about doing these things in winter is that you invariably have the deck to yourself. We were the only ones to brave the open top – hoods up and mittens on – with everyone else huddled down below.
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| Ghost ship |
Living on the south side one crosses the river hundreds of times every year and thinks nothing much of it generally. But there is something exhilarating about travelling under one of London's bridges. Tower Bridge is the most interesting and its underside is almost as intricately wrought as the suspension cables above. Passing under another bridge, the crew commentary pointed out the full length windows in its side walls revealing individual spa rooms with women in fluffy towelling robes reclining in post-treatment bliss.
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| Under Tower Bridge |
We cruised east and Canary Wharf loomed up ahead, its plate-glass towers glinting in the sunshine. The glare of the sun was magnified by the water and I ended the day with a touch of bright-weather blindness, I'm sure.
We hopped off in Greenwich and toured some of its naval landmarks, from the Old Naval College, now a music conservatoire, to the Trafalgar Tavern, like something out of Venice with the water lapping at its walls.
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| Gate to the Old Naval College |
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| Nelson's local |
It was too lovely a day not to turn inland and take a tour of Greenwich Park, up to one of its hills for my favourite panorama. Everything was looking incredibly sharp in this weather – the Observatory, the house designed and lived in by Sir John Vanbrugh in 1719 (just outside the park walls). Trees become see-through and their branches spindly, like bony fingers reaching out to frame a view.
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| Karin contemplates the view east |
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| Vanbrugh's house |
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| The Royal Observatory |
We hopped aboard again for the trip back to SW1. The brick and timber of the riverside terraces were gleaming golds and rich browns in the evening sun and from the river the Shard looked every inch iconic enough for a world-class city like London. But it is in SE1. And I'm claiming it for south east London.
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| The riverside as it might once have looked |
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| And we're back at Tower Bridge |
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| River view of Shard |
