On Day 8 we decided to try out the attractions near London Bridge, the London Dungeon and the Britain At War Experience, then wander around a bit. We bought our tickets for the former at the ticket office in our hotel, and grabbed the Tube down at Russell Square.

Arriving at the London Dungeon, we were glad to have picked up our tickets ahead of time; there was line about half a block or so long to get in. The ticketholders' line, on the other hand, had only about a dozen people in it, and we got in fairly quickly. (If only we'd known about the lines when we went to the Tower of London!)

The first thing they do in the Dungeon is take a photograph of members of your group. I'm not sure how it was that I was chosen as the victim for that picture, but there you have it.

The Dungeon wasn't quite as thrilling as I expected it to be - it was a cross between a haunted house and displays about the darker episodes in London's past. The lighting had to be dim to keep it scary, but that did make it a bit difficult to read about everything. Still, it had some quite entertaining parts, including a discussion of torture methods, a mock trial, talk of the Plague and the Ripper, and a nice little Wicked Women section. This last showed various female fighters, poisoners, etc. from the past, including a much less than flattering depiction of Bodicea.

The Britain At War Experience was much more interesting, although we didn't take any pictures there. There was an air raid shelter you could sit in, which would play various sound effects that one might have heard from inside one during the Blitz... displays on how the people at home helped with the war effort, including the Womens' Land Army... how children were sent out of London and into the country for their safety... radio recordings of Churchill, Ed Murrow, Roosevelt, Hitler... and a recreation of a London city street hit by an air raid. It really was a fascinating experience, particularly for an American, seeing as how we've never really experienced modern war on our own (mainland) soil.

From there we decided to wander along the south bank of the Thames a bit. We started around the Hays Galleria, which has a wonderful kinetic sculpture/fountain called The Navigators. And in the same atrium was something I've never seen before, or even really expected to see - an entire orchestra of accordion players! We paused for lunch at The Horniman pub, then headed on down the bank of the Thames.

As we were near London Bridge, we decided to squeeze in a good closeup pic of one of its dragons. Then it was off again along the Thames, where we soon came across a fully functional recreation of The Golden Hinde [sp], the ship Sir Francis Drake used to first circumnavigate the globe in 1580.

Further along the river, we came across the recreation of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, built by American actor/director Sam Wanamaker to "further the experience and international understanding of Shakespeare in performance". From there we continued on past the Tate Modern, which had on display some large inflatable works by Paul McCarthy, Blockhead and Daddies BigHead.

Around that time JP started to feel ill, so we headed back toward the Tube. We walked across the Millennium Bridge (opened late in 2002 due to excessive lateral swaying) toward St. Paul's Cathedral. Just on the other side of the bridge we stopped in The Centre Page pub to enjoy a bit of air conditioning - it was an almost uncomfortably hot day, being in the upper 70s, sunny, and humid. The woman behind the bar asked me if it was hot enough for me, and when I responded that I really hadn't expected this kind of weather when I came to England, she came back that neither had they! So we sat and watched some championship darts on their projection TV, and enjoyed a pint (me) and a cuppa (JP) before moseying along back to the hotel for naps.