The London Eye may not be the biggest Ferris wheel in the world, but it sure feels that way when you are at the top. You can look down on Big Ben, and the Parliament Building, and Westminster Abby, and St. Paul’s as well as the River Thames.  On a clear day you can see 35 miles of the breathtakingly beautiful city of London spreading out around you in all directions.

 I’m usually pretty quick with a description, but all I could say was, “Wow.” I heard lots of one-word exclamations in many

different languages, because from what I could see, the only English spoken on the London Eye is spoken by American Tourists. The British sell tickets and move the passengers along (surprisingly efficiently) but apparently they don’t ride the tallest Ferris wheel in Europe.

 The Eye attracts 3.5 million visitors annually and is now the most popular tourist attraction in the United Kingdom. It was built to celebrate the new Millennium and to give England an architectural feature that would be as identifiable as the

Eifel Tower.  It looks more like a bicycle wheel than an eye, but that description isn’t nearly romantic enough to describe a structure that dominates the London landscape.

For six years, the London Eye was the tallest Ferris wheel in the world (443 feet tall with a diameter of 394 feet) until it was bypassed first by the Star of Nanchang and then by the Singapore Flyer. It was officially opened by British Prime minister Tony Blair on December 31, 1999, but wasn’t actually put into use until March of that year.

 The London Eye wasn’t the first giant Ferris wheel to be built in London. The Great

Wheel was built in Earls Court for the Empire of India Exhibition and opened to the public in 1895. That wheel was modeled (even more than the London Eye) on the original Ferris wheel built for the ’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago.

It cost fifty cents for a twenty-minute ride on the Chicago Wheel. A thirty-minute trip around the Eye with 24 other passengers will cost you £29.50. You’ll ride inside a sealed air conditioned capsule. Seating is available or you can walk around if you want to—and you’ll want to.

Don’t miss it if you are in London.