Walking along the Thames
Thames foot path spans many miles on both sides of the river. I know only small parts of it, the one between Thames Barrier and Royal Greenwich up to the Ahoy Yacht club, some part in central London and both sides between Putney and Barnes railway bridges. My favourite and the closest is the last one.
Well, so called foot path because it is more and more often used by cyclists, people on rollers and skateboards. It can be very busy in some places, on any day of the week, especially when weather is nice. I mean at least dry and not too cold. Obviously parts of central London or Greenwich are always busy, mainly with visitors or even Londoners looking for something different from congested, noisy streets, offices, trains or buses. Hmm, these days anything considered as exercising is popular.
Many more people got on the cycles and rollers then ever before. It became a life style, a must have and do thing, with cycling being also heavily promoted by the government to scrap cars, especially in London. This made driving a misery already. But we are here about walking, right? 🙂
Over the past months I have walked many miles. I was doing it twice, three times a week, then almost on a daily bases. Did I got more fit? No idea but for sure I found myself liking it enough to continue. My Greenwich walks were during midday’s, so not too many opportunities for stunning views and pictures. But my evening walks in Hammersmith and Chiswick let me see wonderful sun light, sun sets and other gorgeous views.
The Thames foot path is not just a path, yes it is in some places the only thing but on the river banks there are many establishments such as pubs, restaurants, rowing and sailing clubs, historical buildings, galleries and life events. The river path can be super busy or very quiet but it is always worthwhile to get along with it.
Below is a small collection of images captured during few walks.
I mentioned rowing and sailing clubs and some have their boats almost every day on the water. Also, what you might not ever seen before, there are people swimming in tidal part of the river. Yes, water is clean, clean enough to sustain life in it and not harm swimmers. However, this usually happens in its upper parts like in Chiswick. Simply because from Putney Bridge down the river, there is a lot of commercial traffic and such water activity would be super dangerous.
It seems like something wrong but it is normal for some house owners in Chiswick. At spring high tide a street can be completely flooded. So houses have flood gates.
