St. Paul's Cathedral

The weather in London, lately, has been so unlike the spring weather I expected to experience here. The temperatures have been mostly normal, but the surprising bit is how often the sun is out! And I mean, truly sunny.. and not just "sunny spells" or "bouts of sun" as the British weather forecasters normally predict (they never speak about the sun in positive terms.) Hence, I decided to spend one of these wonderfully sunny days at St. Paul's Cathedral.  I had been waiting for a proper day to take in the views of London at the very tip-top of the dome, over 500 steps from the floor of the cathedral. The Thames, Tower Bridge, London Eye look amazing from so high up, especially on a beautiful day full of sun. I had never been inside St. Paul's before either. I've only seen the exterior from the Millennium Bridge, Tate Modern or an open-topped, double-decker, sight-seeing bus. Photography inside the cathedral was not allowed and although I did enjoy learning about the architecture and history of the interior, the main reason I had come was to climb the stairs to look out over this amazing city ;)

First, I climbed to the Stone Gallery:

Then I continued up a tiny, twisty passage...

a window in the floor... right in the middle
of the dome looking down to the cathedral floor!

And now the views from the Golden Gallery:

for perspective... 

disclaimer: this post was to go up two days ago, but Blogger has not been cooperative!