A day couldn't start any better as it did. With a morning breakfast and coffee we felt refreshed and ready to start our third day. After a short trip in the underground, we arrived to the Tate Britain museum. But we have also realised it was the wrong one (we were supposed to meet in Tate modern, which is located on the other side of the city). We went back to Waterloo station by the river Themes. It was quite a walk, because our group was already 25 minutes late. Nothing was going according to the plan and as if that wasn't enough we got stuck on a pedestrian zone because of construction work.
Finally we've arrived at Tate modern, where the rest of our group was waiting for us. Mr Marcus was our guide through the gallery. We had gathered a lot of information about Tate Modern, which is the largest modern art gallery in Europe. The entrance is free, that is why it is the second largest free visitor's attraction in London (by the number of visitors). Artworks are situated in former power plant factory and in my opinion it is one of the ugliest building in central London. Although the building was designed to host maximum of 2 million visitors per year, 5 million is actually visiting. You can imagine it is very crowded and that is why the new part is being built for next year’s season. There is also a membership club for donators. It is one of the largest one in Europe. They have more than 100 000 members and each of them gets different perks. Club membership costs about 90 euros. The visit concluded with a gift to our guest. He got our traditional salt from Sečovlje and he looked very impressed.
Our journey continued near mayor's office. Our schedule was to visit organisation called London and partner, which is financed by the government and private partners. We were welcomed by Barbara Jamison, the Head of Business Development Europe in Convention Bureau. Olympic Games was the main subject of our meeting, London as a tourist destination had to plan the Olympic park so that it would be long-term sustainable, especially for the local population. Slovenia’s promotion was one of the topics in our meeting. We are “the secret gem” in the eyes of British partners and especially British tourists.
The fun started in the evening. We had our own version of “pub crawling”. A visit to Porterhouse was a right decision. They have so many different beer we almost couldn't decide which one we should take. We’ve tried Guinness, Foster’s and a special Cabbies ginger beer, which has a sweet and spicy flavour. We have also visited Globe pub on Baker Street but our journey ended in a pub of our hostel. After a few pints, we went to bed.
Filip Matjaž, Pia Strahovnik and Santin Sodin
London, 11.1.2014
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