Ashes, Ashes: The Silent Streets of Pompeii

See this title ^ 
This would likely be the title of my National Geographic article, which would eventually become a National Geographic movie. Except I'm not gunning to write for NG and they already made movie on Pompeii... which brings me back to my childhood.

Grandma Dorthy always got a new NG movie (VHS of course) for us to watch on Christmas Eve.  One of those was a film on Pompeii.  This film became and remained the basis of my desire to visit Pompeii (and where most of my now hazy knowledge of the city's history came from).  And this childhood desire kicked in when I realized how close we would be to this ancient city.  We couldn't pass up the opportunity so we hopped a train to the ruins.

The silhouette of Mount Vesuvius in the background is a constant reminder of nature's ability to conquer man's creations.

You could spend days seeing everything in Pompeii and years learning its history.  For now I am glad we had an afternoon exploring the silent streets of Pompeii.

St. Paul's Cathedral

I remember seeing a picture of St. Paul's in elementary school and thinking, "Hey, they copied our state capitol building!" (meaning the one in Washington DC). Good thing no one burst my bubble that St. Paul's is actually the original. To me the dome stills seems a little odd that it's on a church, since it's so similar to many state capitol building in the US. It's a pretty amazing church though. 

Can't beat the view from the top. 528 steps. 

The masterpiece of Sir Christopher Wren. It's been an anchor to the London skyline since 1700. I love visiting buildings like this because they truly are monumental in modern times, but then to remember that the are hundreds of years old. Some of the great stories we heard of the history when we visited included the fact that during air raids of World War II a bomb actually broke through the ceiling and landed on the cathedral floor, but they were able to deactivate it before detonation. The blast would have destroyed the entire building. This church has meant a lot to a lot of people over the years. 

Modern architecture in an old city

This was a really cool area of London. An old power plant has been converted into the Tate Modern art gallery. It's a pretty amazing repurposing of a building. Nearby are the Borough Market and Globe Theater. All this is connected back to the main part of London by the Millennium Bridge. The bridge was completed to usher in the new millennium back in 2000, but had to be closed 2 days later for an additional 2 years because it moved back and forth too much with foot traffic.

Couldn't resist a video from Harry Potter.