Our next destination, the London Eye, was and is a gigantic Ferris wheel and one of the top tourist attractions in London. It's found in the borough of Lambeth, just across the Thames from Westminster and perched on the edge of the river next to the County Hall Building. It was built in 1999 (a combined effort of several European countries), but was not opened to the public until March of 2000. It is still sometimes referred to as the Millennium Wheel. At the time of its completion, it was the tallest Ferris wheel in the world, with a height of 443 feet (135 meters). It is now just the fifth tallest, with the "High Roller" in Las Vegas being the tallest at 550 feet. The wheel was assembled on platforms floating in the Thames, and was slowly tilted up onto the riverbank over a period of several days. It is supported by a single A-frame "kickstand" on its landward side and is billed as "the world's tallest cantilevered observation wheel" (I couldn't say how much competition there is in this particular category). The A-frame obviously keeps the wheel from falling over onto the County Hall Building (and any tourists who might happen to be in the area), but it also appears to be the main support keeping the wheel from toppling back into the river – there are a few cables connected on the landward side, but they don't appear as though they'd be up to the task of holding up the massive wheel (1,700 tonnes of steel) by themselves.

Passengers on the London Eye ride in enclosures called "capsules", which are designed to hold up to 25 people each. The passengers are not restrained, and are free to walk around in the capsules, though there's a large central platform on which they can sit if so inclined. There are 32 capsules on the wheel, one for each of the boroughs of London (and also a convenient exponent of two), numbered from 1 to 33. Don't scratch your head too much on this – there's no capsule 13, as that would be unlucky. And capsule 33 isn't between capsules 32 and 1 – it's where capsule 13 would be, if there were a capsule 13.

The London Eye seemed as though it would be a good way to start our day, as it would give us a nice birds-eye view of some London landmarks, prior to actually visiting some of them. We took the Underground to the closest stop, which appeared to be the massive Waterloo Underground and Railway Station a short distance east of the Eye. We proceeded to the ticket office, located in the County Hall Building.

The London Eye is not a cheap ride. At the time of our visit, a Standard ticket cost above 21 pounds, or more than $30 in U.S. money, and as of this writing, that amount has gone up to 27 pounds. In our case, we'd bought combination tickets online that also included a river cruise (stay tuned for a future page on this). There are also other combination tickets available – see the London Eye website for info. All of the tickets seemed to come with the "London Eye 4D Cinema Experience", about which I recall absolutely nothing. Apparently there were 3D glasses involved (see photographic evidence below). Not sure what the fourth dimension was. Maybe time – a few minutes we'll never get back.

After the Experience, we were sent over to the Eye itself, where we joined a waiting line to board. The line wasn't very long for us – I don't know whether this is typical or unusual – and moved pretty steadily. Apparently the wheel is constantly turning, and doesn't normally stop for boarding and disembarking (though occasional brief stops to accommodate disabled people do happen). This is possible because the wheel moves very slowly – one revolution every 30 minutes. Not really a thrill ride, unless you're afraid of heights. Your ride consists entirely of this 30 minutes, which might not sound like much for the money, but which is more than enough time to view and photograph the surrounding area.

Eventually we were ushered into one of the capsules and began our rotation. We found the capsule comfortably roomy, even with our fellow passengers (well under 25 of them in our case). There were clear views in all directions, though the glass walls were subject to a bit of reflection or smudginess in spots.

The directions themselves were possibly a little confusing to out-of-towners – though the Thames generally flows from west to east, the London Eye is situated on a kink in the river in which it's flowing more from south to north. So if you're looking across the river expecting to be looking north, you may be surprised to find yourself looking west instead.

From the Lambeth side of the river, the Eye rotates in a counter-clockwise direction, which means you start with a northward ascent. Starting at river level, the first things you notice to the north are the local bridges. The closest bridge is actually a grouping of bridges – a pair of narrow footbridges, called the Golden Jubilee Bridges, on either side of a central railway bridge (leading to the Charing Cross railway station across the river), known as the Hungerford Bridge. The next bridge is for vehicular traffic and is called the Waterloo Bridge.

From higher up, you can see the modern skyscrapers of London's business center to the northeast. In addition to their official names, some of these buildings have fanciful nicknames inspired by their appearances (e.g. "Cheese Grater", "Walkie Talkie"). Somewhat closer and much older is the dome of St. Paul's Cathedral. Almost due east, you can see a building called The Shard, completed in 2012, which is the tallest building in the European Union at 1,017 feet. And to the southeast is the Waterloo Railway and Underground station, whose large size can be fully appreciated from this vantage point.


Eventually our capsule reached the top of the wheel. This is where you can truly see in all directions and where acrophobics get queasy.

What goes up must come down, and at this point we started descending, but on the south side of the wheel. This is where the best views can be had of the Westminster area, including the Houses of Parliament, Big Ben, and Westminster Abbey. In the distance to the west, it's possible to catch a glimpse of Buckingham Palace.




Returning to ground level, we filed out of our capsule, having already decided on our next adventure. This involved crossing the river, which we did at Westminster Bridge to the south.

Naturally this took us into the City of Westminster and to the area's primary attraction (as far as we were concerned anyway), Westminster Abbey.