Emirates Air Line in London

As some of you may know it was my birthday on Saturday, and to celebrate it, (after lunch with family, of course) The Englishman decided to ignore (!) his fear of heights and take me on the cable car which crosses the Thames. Since it opened for the London Olympics last year, The Emirates cable car has been criticised for being expensive, and for going ‘from nowhere to nowhere’. Papers like The Standard have also been writing that no-one ever goes on it.

Well, on Saturday there was a queue! After waiting for about 20 minutes in the sunny but windy quayside, we paid our £3.20 fare on our Oyster cards and got onboard. (I didn’t think that was too bad a price).

Once inside it felt a bit as if a ski lift had been put in the wrong place. I must admit that while the Englishman had been apprehensive, I felt real fear once the glass cubicle began to climb up into the air. Somehow a ski lift seems safer – or perhaps on a Nordic skiing holiday I have more adrenalin flowing through my veins?

The views were fantastic, though, especially on such a sunny day. Below us the river snaked towards the sea, with the Thames Barriers to the East and The Millennium Dome – or O2 as it’s now called – to the West. In the distance, the glass fronted skyscrapers of Canary Wharf glinted in sun.

In the end The Englishman wasn’t at all bothered about the height. Typical, when he’s OK, I’m not…It wasn’t as if I didn’t enjoy the ride, but I was mighty glad to be back on Terra firma and later on a river boat going back into town.

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