Today Pat, Carmilla and I decided to tour the historical Tower of London. What a fascinating place this is. Before today I never really had any idea of the structure of the Tower of London. There is so much history here and you can feel it when you walk the grounds.
And the Crown Jewels are stored here! This is a fascinating display of both the current Crown Jewels, but also previous jewels as well. They are behind clear glass cases, but you can get within inches of the largest diamonds and precious stones in the world.
There are guided tours by the Beefeaters which show you the grounds and give you a good orientation.
He also showed us the execution field inside the castle, where selected people were executed, including Anne Boleyn. People executed in this field were buried with their heads under the Tower's church floor. Others who were beheaded on Tower Hill, outside the Tower, had their heads put onto poles and displayed on London Bridge.
The Beefeaters are a rare breed, and they are still official guards of the Queen. The minimum requirements to just apply for the position include 22 years of military service for the queen, and various exemplary service awards. Our guide was sharply dressed, very knowledgeable, and very witty. He made it a real joy to explore the grounds.
We then toured the middle, largest tower, which is know as the white tower. It is a seaf guided tour and the tower is now a museum filled with all sorts of mid-evil armored suits, horse protective gear, lances, swords, cannons... You get the idea. It was actually quite interesting. We heard there is also a torture museum but we did not find that. Maybe next time.
We spent several hours at the Tower, and then we decided to grab a quick bite to eat, and then Carmilla took us on a tour to see a different part of London. We went to East London on the DLR (Docklands Light Railway). This is recently added addition to the tube system in London, and it is above ground in nice modern cars and stations. We ended up in the new financial district around Canary Wharf, full of glass high-rise buildings and suits and ties. OK, seen enough, outta here...
We headed back to home base and then decided to find a local pub for dinner.
To this point we had still not had our obligatory fish and chips, so the hunt was on.
I went into two pubs but neither was serving food, only pints :-)
The second suggested I try a place named Coco Momo, in Holburn. It turned out it was only a few blocks from where we were staying.
Mark had fish & chips with mushy peas, and Pat & Carmilla tried other dishes.
The pub was full and lively, the food was great and the beer was cold.
What more could you ask for... :-)
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| Exterior of Tower of London |
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| Traitors Gate |
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| The interior execution field. Some of the Beefeaters now live behind the blue doors. |
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| The white tower |
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| Knight and horse armor |
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| King Henry VIII armor, anatomically correct |
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| Financial district, around Canary wharf |
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| Canary Wharf area |
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| Canary Wharf area |
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| Fish & Chips and mushy peas! |
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