When you visit Millennium Bridge in London, you're crossing what was meant to be a triumphant celebration of the new millennium but quickly became one of the city's most memorable engineering mishaps. This sleek steel suspension bridge connects Bankside with the City of London, stretching 325 meters across the Thames between Blackfriars Railway Bridge and Southwark Bridge.

The story begins on June 10, 2000, when roughly 90,000 people crossed the bridge on its opening day. That's about 2,000 people standing on it simultaneously. What happened next turned this modern marvel into instant London folklore. The bridge started swaying so dramatically that pedestrians couldn't walk properly. Londoners immediately dubbed it the "Wobbly Bridge" – some even called it the "Wibbly Wobbly."

I find it fascinating that this £18.2 million structure, designed by Arup and built to last centuries, was essentially defeated by people walking. The swaying became so alarming that authorities closed the bridge the same day it opened. After two days of limited access, they shut it down completely for almost two years while engineers figured out how to stop the wobble.

The location couldn't be more perfect, though. From the southern end, you're steps away from Tate Modern, Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, and the Bankside Gallery. The northern approach leads you right to St Paul's Cathedral, with the City of London School tucked below. The bridge alignment creates a direct sightline to St Paul's dome – something that works beautifully for photographers.

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What strikes me most about walking across it now is how stable it feels. The £5 million fix worked completely. It's hard to imagine this calm, 4-meter-wide walkway once moved like a ship in rough seas. The engineering solution involved adding dampers underneath, but you barely notice them.

Being the first new pedestrian bridge across the Thames in over a century gave it historical significance beyond the wobble incident. Today, it's simply a pleasant way to cross the river, connecting two of London's most culturally rich areas. The wobble is history, but the nickname stuck.