In that London

Back in the summer we took a family holiday to France via a stop in London, and we got the chance for a few snaps around the City and a few railway photos.

Starting point though, an unhealthily-early start from Bradford Interchange...

I (Ben) hoped for some slightly better photo opportunities at Kings Cross, as the last time I was there it was being rebuilt.  Unfortunately this time, with three giddy children on their first trip to London, and in the station where Harry Potter was filmed, there wasn't time to stop and look for picture opportunities.

The Tate Modern was a logical place to go for a couple of hours, being big enough to awe The Childs, and with enough random madness in the exhibits to grab their attention.

To be honest though it was this impressive installation, "Babel" by Cildo Meireles, made up of hundreds of speakers, radios, and electronic bits, which was catching everybody's attention.  This immense tower structure was certainly attracting the crowds, and we stayed looking at it for quite a while...

Though personally I rather liked the smaller piece, "Bakelite Robot" by Nam June Paik.

Back onto the trains, and my first taste of where all the UK transport budget appears to get spent... an older train admittedly (though of a type being sent here Up North as 'new' stock) but in a massively modern station.

Having said the transport budget was spent down here in London, Sunday dawned with the horror-inspiring discovery that there were no heavy rail services from our station into London.  No replacement buses, no staff, no notices, and no warning it was going to happen.  Luckily one of our group had been down here on a job and knew where the Tube was, so we got to have another go on the Underground (and where Younger Child unnerved the locals by committing that most heinous of crimes on the Tube, and saying hello to them).

St.Pancras Station, and two generations of Eurostar.  Typically ours would not be the shiny new example, though I do rather like the older design, the same type we rode on for our first trip to France as a married couple some years back...

St.Pancras remains probably the most impressive station I've ever been to, and a nice place to set off from on an adventure.  The various security barriers and things make it a little tricky to get railway photographs, but by this point we were mainly herding the children and triple-checking the tickets and travel documents...  Next time, a few pics from France itself...