ITP Diary 10th August 2014 : Şeyda Çetin

On our first Saturday we had a panoramic tour through London.
We started the tour at Drummond Street, in front of Schafer House. Some of us have been to London before, some not, but we were all excited to see this fascinating city. The weather was luckily nice; the sun was shining with some bits of clouds during our tour. Our guide was Ruth Rossington who is a Blue Badge Guide. She led us throughout the city giving us information about the iconic monuments and popular places as well as some hints about this metropolitan city with over 13 million inhabitants.
Our coach departed at 09:00 and we head to the Tower Bridge passing by many historical places. As I like local markets very much, Borough Market was one of my favourite places on our way. Now I know where it is, so I will definitely go back and discover London’s oldest fruit and veg market dating back to 13th century. When we got close to the bridge we got off and walked by the River Thames. With the sunny weather it was great to have group photos, with the Bridge behind.

In our tour we have seen Westminster Abbey, the Houses of Parliament, the Elizabeth Tower, Big Ben (of course!), Trafalgar Square (saw the blue cockerel on the fourth plinth) and Piccadilly Circus.

We wanted to see one of the most famous daily ceremonies in the World, the Changing of Guards at Buckingham Palace. But the Prudential Ride London Freecycle was taking place almost all over the city and they cancelled the Ceremony. Eventually, it was good for us to see this event; we cheered the cyclists on the way. It was wonderful to see the cyclists dominating the traffic at least for once!

Our guide and driver did a great job and covered many possible places you might want to see in London. I would like to thank them and the ITP team of BM once again for leading a group of around 20 people (which is difficult, but we are a compatible group too), showing them this beautiful, and cosmopolitan city in four hours.

 

Seyda Cetin, Projects and Events Specialist at Koç University’s Research Center for Anatolian Civilizations, Istanbul, Turkey