Despite the rather gloomy weather forecast, we decided to go to Battersea today.

Our fast train to London had been cancelled, so we decided to take the slow train instead. However, when we got to Orpington Station, it turned out that the previous fast train was so delayed that we were in time to catch that one instead.
It was a bit of a slow journey, then got slower and at one point, we were even diverted onto the slow lines. An announcement told us of a signalling issue near Waterloo. We then passed various other trains heading to London, and eventually there was another announcement that our train would terminate at London Bridge due to a “lineside fire”. So we got off and headed for the tube, only to find that closed as well. We headed outside, along with what seemed like thousands of other people and walked past some fire engines and across London Bridge away from the area.

It turned out that there had been a major fire at Southwark, which not only closed the railway to Charing Cross, but smoke had got into the tube tunnels, so the tube was closed as well.

Luckily, Monument tube station was unaffected, so we got a tube to Victoria, then a train to Battersea Park station.

From there, it was a short walk to the park, and finally, a bit of peace and quiet:

We stopped for a coffee at a cafe further into the park:

Then onto some very nice fountains and planting:

Then to a very peaceful “Old English Garden”:

and finally reaching the Thames by Battersea Bridge:

A bit further along was the “Peace Pagoda”, built in 1984:

We carried along the Thames under Chelsea Bridge to the new development around Battersea Power Station and stopped for a beer:

We both remember the area more as a building site that an upmarket bit of London:

and then to the power station itself, looking almost TOO clean and tidy:

From there, we made our way to the new tube station also called “Battersea Power Station”:

All bright and shiny, but despite costing 1.1 billion pounds for a few miles of new railway, still has the old tube trains:

We stopped off at the other new station at High Elms, but nothing much to see there:

From there, we went to Charing Cross – good timing as it had just started to rain!
And our (uneventful) journey home. An interesting day out!