Hi Everyone,
I've been working on this post for a while now, this one and a few others that are almost finished. I've come to the conclusion that the longer I work on a post doesn't really make the post any better but at least it keeps me occupied.
This post is full of pictures of what is probably the most visited and photographed place in all of England. Smack in the middle of central London is Trafalgar Square. I would imagine that if you've been to London then you've been here.
I think the picture above is an absolutely great picture. Unfortunately its not mine. I borrowed it from the Bike Radar site at some point last year. I've cycled all over this area, trust me on this, it is a crazy, busy place. Sometimes I think it would be great if all of the people in London, before being allowed to drive their cars, taxis, and buses had to ride a bicycle around Trafalgar Square for a week. This city would be a much nicer place to live and even ride because they would have experienced their London in a new way and gotten a little knowledge of what cyclists might be thinking as they pull along side that huge red bus. This picture says to me that you should try to see the world from a cyclist point of view. Of course to get this particular view the cyclist would had to have fallen off the bike and been sprawled on the ground but that is being way to literal. The moral of this paragraph is (isn't it cool when a paragraph has a moral) is get out of your cars and get on your bikes and see the world a little differently. Either that or just give a cyclist a smidgen more room than the day before so he doesn't ever have to look at the world through his back tire again.
Since I'm talking about a picture from Bike Radar, I might as well mention that they recently acquired cyclingnews.com. I pretty much visit this site everyday in order to keep up with what is happening in the cycling world. You get all the race results plus a whole lot of great photos. This week (and the next two) is The Vuelta a Espana. Sunday the Tour of Britain starts here in London. I will be there and will hopefully get a few pictures. No rain, please.
So where was I, distracted already, not a good sign. Oh yeah, Trafalgar Square. The picture above is looking at the square from Piccadilly Circus. Below is pretty much the same view but you can see one of those cyclists over there on the left.
As you can tell, I liked to take pictures from this spot. No I'm not standing in the middle of the road, ok maybe technically I am, but I'm on a traffic island with a nice steel fence to protect me from the cars and the people (there is a crosswalk just in front of me and hordes of people cross when the traffic lessens or the light turns).
Now before we actually see some of my pictures of the square it's time for a history lesson. You can't just come to my blog and look at the pictures. You also have to put up with me trying to learn a little more about a place than anyone really needs to know. Ok, I guess I can't stop you from just scrolling through all this but you would be missing out.
The square was completed in 1845. The name commemorates a British Naval victory during the Napoleonic Wars, the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805.
The guy on top of the column is Admiral Horatio Nelson. Horatio, you would think, would be a much more common English name than it curently is. Not sure why it didn't catch on. Anyway Horat's Column, see not a good nickname (Rat's Column didn't work either, and Hor's Column, well we just won't go there). Anyway Nelson's Column looks south toward Westminster Abbey. The picture above is from the steps of the National Gallery.
Across the street to the east of the National Gallery, that is to the right in the picture above is St. Martin's-in-the-Field Church (below). They just finished a large part of the restoration work and it is once again open to the public. Just so everyone knows, Leicester Square is basically just behind the National Gallery.
Below is Admiralty Arch which leads to the Mall and Buckingham Palace. 
Ok now it's time for some more pictures. The horse police people and horses in the above picture were great at slowing down the traffic around the square. They (the police people) did quite a lot of yelling, mostly at taxi drivers and dumb pedestrians that wouldn't pay attention to the lights. I saw a few drivers that looked like they just wished they would get out of the way already.
I bet you would have never thought that you could ride a Lion in central London. Its actually been pretty tough to get a picture of the Lion's without a tourist or two on them. Just for those of you that are curious. The four Lions at the base of Nelson's Column were designed by Edward Landseer and finished in 1867 and apparently ridden by tourists ever since.
This is a statue of King Henry IV. Notice the pigeon on his head and that spire really isn't jutting from his back. The feeding of pigeons in the square was banned completely in 2007 and their numbers have been getting smaller and smaller. The flock had reached an estimated 35000 birds at one point before most people had finally had enough of them. My source for most of this stuff is of course Wikipedia, it's a very useful site.
A lot of events and rallies take place at the square as well. For the 2 weeks of the Olympics you could watch live coverage and replays throughout the day and all the way until 9 pm. I went a few times after work and on weekends, when it wasn't raining it was a fun place to sit, eat, and watch. You can tell from the size of the crowd that the rain had just started again and people are heading for cover.
That is Michael Phelps winning another gold medal and setting another world record. It was a pretty impressive accomplishment and seeing it on the big screen in Trafalgar Square was also pretty impressive.
That's all for now.
