My friends Steve, Terry and I decided to spend a day floating down the Thames and go to Richmond…read moreand just enjoy the summer day. We bought our tickets from at the ticket booth at Hampton Court located on the River Thames just across the Thames from the Big London Eye and directly across the street from Big Ben. If you have a Travel Card which is a daily travel pass, you can receive a 30% discount. Our 1100 departure came and went but eventully this smal boat arrived and docked closer to 1115am. The three person crew were very friendly, welcomed us aboard and off we went. We were lucky enough to be on The Connaught, a vintage ship from the Edwardian times celebrating her 99th year plying the Thames; fortunately, her engine and crew were not that old! This ship has an open deck up front as well as in the back but if you want to stay out of the wind and cool breezes there is a large covered area below with windows, tables and chairs and a bar! We became very friendly with the bar tender buying several pints of beer.
The captain of the Connaught gave commentary along the way which was nice but he also just let us enjoy the peace and quiet to enjoy the beauty of the Thames. Immediately upon our departure, I realized how the Thames slices through Central London and winds its way through the city. If you are a Planespotter, you'll love this trip too because we pretty much followed the landing and take off patterns of London's Heathrow airport; we were lucky enough to be under Emirates new A380 from Dubai as it made its final approach to LHR, the wingspan seemed to dwarf that of the 747-400!.
We passed many old buildings on the banks of the Thames, what were once loading dock areas of the past have been converted to very trendy lofts offering excellent views of the Thames. I especially liked the numerous bridges that we sailed underneath, some were built over 100 years ago and still operating! Each one seemed to have it's own personality, I would take this tour again just to see the bridges. As we continued closer to Richmond the city of London left us and the countryside welcomed us, lots of weeping willow trees on the banks, rustic flowers blooming in the late summer season and large estates began to appear with very large back yards and private launches for their own boats; that's the life! Eventually we arrived at the first lock we needed to get through to enter the next section of the Thames. If you have cruised through the Panama Canal you will understand how this works, this was a miniature version but using the same engineering. Within 10-15minutes we had risen about 8-10feet, the lock in front of us was opened and we continued on our way to Kew. On this trip we did not leave the Connaught at Kew but I highly recommend going to Kew Gardens, they are absolutely beautiful and the conservatory has one of the best displays of Orchids I have seen. We picked up a few more customers and left for Richmond. At this point we were truly in the country and there's nothing to do but just sit back and enjoy the gentle motion of the ship, take in the sunshine, have a sip of your beer and be thankful for a wonderful day.
We arrived in beautiful Richmond, many restaurants and pubs along the river and incase you don't want to take the ship back to London there is a train that will whisk you back to Waterloo station in just 25minutes.
I truly enjoyed this trip and recommend it for anyone who is visiting, traveling by boat/ship beats riding the underground anyday.