MetropolitHan

Sunday, 20 January 2013

Barbican

I have a few more photos to post from my trip up to the Barbican last week.

The Barbican is a big arts centre/venue thing surrounded by various residential buildings (they're of a similar style but were built at different times). You can walk around a lot of the estate as well as the arts centre, and it's huge and usually very quiet at the weekend and excellent for pretending it's the end of the world.

It's also very near the Museum of London - I don't have any photos but it's well worth a visit.

Barbican Conservatory

So last week I was up in town to look at the steam train, and then I decided to go for a walk around Barbican, because it's the best place in London to pretend the world's ended and you're the only one left (just me? Oh).

While I was wandering, I happened across the rather fabulous Barbican Conservatory, which is a tropical plant hothouse in the middle of the Barbican. This was super exciting for me, especially as one of my favourite things to take photos of is giant plants (Eden Project ftw). Also it was warmer than outside, so that was nice.

Excitingly, as well as over 2000 (!) species of plant, they also had fish and birds. I am very easily pleased.

It's only open on occasional Sundays, and the next dates are:

Sun 20 Jan
Sun 27 Jan
Sun 10 Feb

...one of which is today. Aren't I helpful? Haha.

http://www.barbican.org.uk/visitor-information/conservatory

Monday, 14 January 2013

Steam train on the tube!

So, my parents don't understand why I like twitter so much or what it really adds to...anything. Part of the reason is things like this: without seeing a random retweet, I wouldn't have known about the special steam train journeys on the old Metropolitan Line route.

Yesterday (Jan 13th - there's another on Jan 20th) I went up to Barbican underground station (which is not actually underground) to see the steam train. I got a quick glimpse of it at Moorgate before it started moving, but I skipped on a normal tube so I could get to Barbican before it did...

Barbican station was, unsurprisingly, pretty busy (I think it's a pretty safe bet that all the stations along the route were like this!).

I was only a few minutes ahead of the train (helpful as it was bloody cold), although we had to wait for a few normal tubes to come and go.

The Sarah Siddons locomotive (one of the world's oldest electric trains) at the front of the train:

The carriages going past:

And finally the Met Locomotive No 1 steam engine (built 1898):

This website was really useful when I was trying to work out where to go, in case anyone's planning on going up for the 20th:

http://www.ianvisits.co.uk/blog/2013/01/07/best-places-to-photograph-london-undergrounds-heritage-steam-train-trips/

Other info:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-20998737

http://www.ltmuseum.co.uk/whats-on/events/vehicles-on-the-move

Friday, 13 July 2012

BT ArtBox

So in the last few weeks some decorated phone boxes have appeared (placed in some rather random locations) around town. They're decorated fibreglass replicas of phone boxes, and they're part of a project to celebrate the 25th anniversary of ChildLine.

Naturally, I have been taking photos of them (not making as much effort as I did with the eggs, hahaha).