Blood and gore... and walking, lots of walking.

Last night after we took our well-deserved naps, we decided to take a short walk around the neighborhood. The flat is located on Thomas More street at St. Katherine's Dock, which is a lovely area with slips for pleasure boats, trendy little boutiques, restaurants and condos. This area had been a working commercial dock for hundreds of years, but, as part of a revitalization effort in the 1970s, was converted into more of an entertainment complex.

During our walk we walked under the Tower Bridge (which for those of you not familiar with London, is the ornate Gothic-looking structure which is commonly mistaken for London Bridge), and headed toward the Tower of London. The Tower is really quite beautiful at night, and the footpath between St Katherine's Dock and the Tower Hill station is a very pleasant and serene walk.



At the Tower Hill tube station we paid for a Jack the Ripper walking tour. Now many tour guides would say that this particular tour is rubbish, and I know that this wasn't something at the top of Emma's list of must-see attractions, especially after a long day. But as she mentioned in a previous post, I enjoy things that "go stab in the head." The Ripper has always been fascinating to me and I really wanted, despite the fact that many important Ripper locales simply do not exist anymore, to go on the walk. Emma was nice enough to humor me, despite the fact that it was a fairly chilly evening and the walk was a good 2 hours long. Scout has said she is really interested to hear about the Ripper walk.... she's a child after my own heart ;)

So we walked all over the East End, which I know has improved dramatically since Victorian times when it was a slum that the tour guide likened to a third-world country. I was really hoping to get Donald Rumbelow, acknowledged as the world's foremost Ripper expert, as a guide. But, alas, our guide's name was Peter. Despite the fact that most sights associated with the Ripper are now gone, Peter was a good storyteller, and we got to walk through some areas of the City that weren't really on my itinerary-- such as the London Wall.

We were pretty well drained by the time it was over, and annoyingly, the tour does not end right where it began. Pretty much the guide just says good-bye and points out the closest tube station. So we had to figure out how to get home. We grabbed a Cornish pasty to eat at Bishop's Gate station and then made our way home.




Ten Bells pub frequented by at least one Ripper victim



~Lizzie~

Mitre Square, where Catherine Eddowes' body (I think) was discovered. One of the few sites that still exists, but not exactly as it did then. The cobblestone paving is the same, I guess.