Day 3 - Tower Bridge

Continental breakfast is included with my stay at the Dolphin. Sounds good huh? Basically, a Continental breakfast consists of a choice of cereals (cornflakes, rice bubbles, bran flakes, muesli .. or .. cornflakes). The waitresses continually shuffle between kitchen and dining room, placing pieces of white toast into a bread basket, which you can then lace with apricot or strawberry jam, or nutella if that’s what rocks your boat. There’s also a selection of teas and a coffee machine that spews forth a reasonable coffee à crème.

After breakfast I get the tube to Tower Hill Station to see the Tower Bridge. My first impression when alighting from the station is, however, a magnificent castle, which just happens to be the Tower of London, spouting its turrets, reveling in its battlements and jutting out its wings – but this can wait!

The Tower Bridge, completed late-19^th century, was meant to complement its more mature neighbour. For some reason I had imagined a 20 metre high modest and rather cute toy-like bridge, not the 50m-high monolith that proudly stands before me. This grand execution of gothic revival architecture looks imposing from whatever angle or distance you view it from.

The museum inside, housed in the upper walkways, discusses the merits of many of the world’s great bridges. The Harbour Bridge is mentioned, of course, being the longest wide span bridge in the world. A little Chinese bridge, almost 2000 years old, gets a mention for ingenuity.

Only 10 people died during construction of the Tower Bridge. Despite being built in the 1890s, the hydraulic, steam and gear mechanisms are a wonder to behold. I hadn’t the faintest idea how any of it worked, despite extensive explanations on the wall, until a father began explaining the pumping actions and pressure controls to his son.

Anyone interested in late-Victorian steampunk culture must visit this wonder and scrutinise its inner workings. I once had an engineering flatmate who said the way it used hydraulics, steam  and coal power, is remarkable. View the pumps and pressure chambers and see if you can work out what's going on.

After downing a mushroom and cream cheese bagel with Moroccan mint tea I head to the Monument – a great phallus with a gold tip, erected in honour, or should I say remembrance, of the Great Fire of 1666 and the rebuilding that followed it. The fire started in a bakery - this should be a lesson to anyone who burns toast at work. The fire brigades of the 17^th century were, however, impotent against the rage of that blaze.

Three pounds to mount the Monument seemed excessive, although quite a few people had braved the several hundred steps to peer at London atop its glimmering .. tip.