March of the Elephants . . . Through the Alps?

So, there is this tube station called Elephant & Castle, and I had always wondered why it was called that. Also, I really wanted to get a picture of the name of the station. Elephant & Castle is a really cool name.

Anyway, Lindsey and I decided to go find out. It was our day of touristy London - Angel Station escalator, the British Library (Magna Carta, the Bard, Gutenberg bible, Alice and the Mad Hatter all included), St. Paul's for Evensong. Anyway, the station is right near the Hannibal House museum on South Bank. I totally forgot about Hannibal and the march to Italy. He was the one that marched the war elephants through the Alps into Italy.

Up the Escalator - 90 feet

A friend and I stopped at Angel Station today. Apparently Angel has the longest escalator in Western Europe. It was the longest escalator ride of my life. It has a vertical rise of 90 feet and a length of 197 feet. It was pretty crazy.

Yes, we rode up it, down it, up it, and down it again before getting back on the tube having never actually exited the station. The security guards probably thought we were insane when we took the escalator for a second time.