A ride on the cable car from North Greenwich

Ahead of competing in the Ride London, MOH needed to register at Excel and collect his rider number for the big day. There was also an exhibition for participants there and wondering what on earth it was all about I decided to tag along. This post isn't about that though, it's my journey over the Thames on the cable car.

So if you've not been on it (or even if you have) please come along for the ride...

The Emirates Air Line operates between North Greenwich and the Royal Victoria DLR station. Cabins arrive every 30 seconds and flights take approximately ten minutes each way. The cabins are easy to board, even I find them easy and this is from the person who stands there swinging her leg trying to get onto a boat (not the sort with gangplanks though, I'm fine with those).

Soon after leaving the terminal building, you'll see a fab piece of art on the left which is larger than it looks.

I'll not lie, it does go quite high - but just look at the design on the supports (not sure if that is the correct name for them) and the mechanics. Amazing hey? 

You get a pretty amazing view of East London.

And of the cabins heading south.  

It's a bit like being on a boat - everyone waves at each other! Ok, maybe not everyone but a lot of people do...

And before long you're heading down towards the Royal Victoria docks, and touching down in East London with its DLR, its beach (with some clever advertising from Nakhon Thai - see below), the cruise liner hotel moored by Excel and no doubt much, much more. 

So there you have it, a journey on London's cable car - what did you think?  Have you been on this already, or will you now?

A walk to the beach at Titchwell...

Today I'm sharing some greenery with a difference, and that's because it's the walk along the West Bank path at the Titchwell Marsh nature reserve. It's just 1km to the beach, but there's so much packed into that short walk.

And it doesn't have a bad view either!

The nature reserve is to our right as we walked along and quite soon we passed the Reedbed pool, where often bearded tits, marsh harriers and bitterns can be seen.  Sadly we didn't spot much, either because we weren't looking well enough or because there wasn't anything to see - I'm not sure which!

Following the Reedbed pool there's the Freshwater marsh with its two hides, that's quickly followed by the Volunteer marsh and then the Tidal marsh. And I bet like me, you just thought there was just marshland, not different sorts - it seems there's more to it than that. The main difference here is saltwater and freshwater, I was paying attention!

There were plenty of benches along the way to sit and enjoy the view, or for the twitchers a chance to rest their equipment and capture some beautiful shots of both the landscape and wildlife alike.

With the dunes in sight, our walk to the beach was almost done and I think this has to be one of the most scenic walks to any beach I've ever been to. And that sky, blue but sadly not quite as warm as it looked, but if the temperature's right I'm convinced that Norfolk could rival any Mediterranean beach resort.

And with that I'm leaving you wondering what's over the dunes, I'll share a post in the next few days of what I found on the beach.  

Oh wow, Oberammergau!

Yes that's a cheesy title but Oberammergau really does deserve its wow. We arrived in Oberammergau by train on the last day of cycling on our Bavarian adventure and before setting off on our 45km cycle back to Füssen I was determined to see a bit of the only town name I recognised in all the places we visited, well apart from Munich of course!

It meant more cycle-miles but not very many, and it seemed rude to get so close and then not to take a look, so instead of turning right out of the station as the route notes said, we turned left and headed into the town.

The town is on the Ammer River, the river that we'd follow today on our cycle and is at the foot of the Kofelgebirge (Kofel peak), which you'll see in the photos further down. It's famous for its Passion Play which was first performed in 1634 when the villagers vowed they would repeat every 10 years provided God spared them from the devastating effects of the bubonic plague, which was sweeping the region at the time.

Now the Passion Play is performed in years ending in zero only by inhabitants of the village. It's a long one too, five hour long performances take place between May and October in the purpose built Passionstheater and approximately half of the population of Oberammergau is involved, with over 2000 taking part in 2010.  That's a lot of people!

It's also famed for the beautiful frescoes decorating the walls of its buildings and it's long association with wood carving. On our short cycle around the town we saw plenty of evidence of both of these.

Just look at the cut-outs on the balconies of the house on the right above!

The Lüftmalerei, the trompe d'oeil style frescoes seen through the Bavarian Alps were pioneered in Oberammergau by a painter named Franze Seraph Zwink whose house was called Zum Lüftl, hence the name Lüftmalerei. The translation also means "air painting" so it is quite apt.

Religious themes are popular subjects and often prominent figures are often portrayed in traditional Bavarian dress, such as Mary in a dirndl - we didn't spot that one, but I'm sure that's quite something to see!  Otherwise frescoes often illustrate the profession of the house-owner.

It's most definitely a pretty town, and I think we were lucky to visit relatively early on a Sunday morning as there weren't many people about. It's the type of place that would fill up and then some at peak times, so it was nice to almost have the streets to ourselves.

The style of the buildings here and throughout Bavaria were chalet-style and picturesque. Although in the UK we have a definite style for our buildings, they're not quite in the same class as these. Beautiful aren't they?

So with our circuit of Oberammergau complete, it was time to head back to the station and follow the cycle route notes once more and head back to Füssen where our cycling adventure had started some six days earlier.  You can read more of my Bavarian cycle tour posts here.

In my next German post I'll be sharing some pictures and more from our visit to Schwansee, or Swan Lake. An experience (for entirely the wrong reasons) you won't want to miss!