Team Taylor Tidings: Day 35

Our entire morning was spent at the Tower of London. It sounds like it’s just a tower but it’s not. The Tower of London is a big fortress where quite a few kings and queens have lived over the years. Although it was meant to be a residence more than anything else, it is more well-known for its bloody history as a prison and execution area for many famous people, including Walter Raleigh, William Penn, and Anne Boleyn.

There are guards there with distinctive uniforms called Yeoman Warders but also known as Beefeaters. They were paid in beef back in the days so that’s where they got the name from. Anyway, they give tours of the place so we were guided through the grounds by one of the warders who was actually quite funny. He explained that the tower, which had been built by William the Conquerer in the 11th century, had originally been surrounded by a moat fifteen feet deep. Unfortunately, the moat doubled as a refuse area and wasn’t all too pleasant after a time. So it has since been filled in.

He showed us Traitors Gate, an area where prisoners entered the fortress, including Anne Boleyn. We also saw the Bloody Tower, where two young princes were held and possibly murdered by their uncle to eliminate competition for the throne. Their bodies were found many years later in a garden nearby and still no one knows for sure who murdered them.

Then there is the Queen’s Residence by the Bloody Tower, just a small area with cute cottages protected by royal guards. Some of the warders live in this area.

Next to that is a prison area where a lot of the prisoners had etched their names or messages into the wall. You could go look at these etchings and that was pretty interesting. Quite a few of them had written messages about deliverance, patience, and justice. Others appealed to God for help. The one I liked the most was one who wrote that the more you suffer for Christ in this life, the greater your glory with him in the next. Many of the prisoners at the tower were held there because of their religious convictions. It was never too good of an idea to go against the official religion in England or you might end up locked away. Such intolerance led to American settlement of course so there’s a lot of history there.

Outside this tower is a small memorial to those executed within the Tower of London on that very spot. That includes Anne Boleyn who had been executed for having an affair. Our tour guide was being so descriptive about the history and the executions, I saw one guy getting a little antsy. The guide asked if he was alright and told him to take off his jacket. I think he was trying not to be sick, haha! So that was kind of funny.

Beyond that is a large building where are held the crown jewels and many other royal pieces. The line to get through was ridiculously long! Even though it was moving steadily, it took us fifteen minutes and passage through three different rooms before we finally got to see any of the jewelry. There were certainly some incredible pieces there, including crowns and scepters and the like, but, as I said before, Nick and I are both a little weary with that stuff so we weren’t really oohing and ahing or anything. Still it’s cool to say that I have seen the crown!

There is the main White Tower, somewhat central to the whole Tower of London and larger than anything else in the vicinity, that we also visited. Inside was a very neat museum of armor and weapons and such but, you guessed it, we were bored with it. We were also running short on time so we hurried on through looking for anything that looked new or unique. We did enjoy an old church on one of the levels, cool because it looked so old and authentic. It was really quite simple, with archways but hardly any decoration, and because of that it felt enchanting. I told Nick I would love to turn back time and be able to see people in here hundreds of years ago doing their thing.

We hurried through a few other spots, everything starting to look the same, and headed on out. We walked along the River Thames toward St. Paul’s Cathedral to meet up with a friend of mine, Roman, whom I had met on my mission in Romania.

St Paul’s was really big and beautiful and I thought maybe it was a bad idea to meet there since it was so large. But we found each other and it was fun to see Roman. We hadn’t seen each other for about five years and he hadn’t met Nick, of course.

I wanted to go inside the church there but we were all hungry and I didn’t want to make Roman do it because he already had. It cost $15 just to go inside! So we looked for a place to eat, which took some time because you are always going to pay a hefty price for even a decent meal here in Europe and in London especially. We finally settled on some pub food which was actually quite good. We visited there for a while, catching up on each other’s lives.

We did go back to St. Pauls and I thought I would just take a peak and see if the interior looked worth the money to check out. There is some history to the church as well, since Prince Charles and Princess Diana were married there. When I went inside, I didn’t see anything too unique from other churches I’d been in and a man was yelling at the line saying they were closing soon anyway so it wouldn’t be worth there time to go in. I at least tried to take a photo before leaving but the man shot his hand up in front of my camera and said, “No photos!” Wow, thanks for invading my bubble, buddy. So that was that.

We really had no plans and at that point I had seen all my must-sees in London already. So we talked about different ideas and decided we would pop in at the Natural History Museum. I had heard they have a very impressive dinosaur collection so I thought that might be fun. We took the tube over there and I was immediately struck by the building itself, which looks as impressive as the Parliament buildings with its archways and multicolored stonework. Neat.

The dinosaurs in the main area, or entrance, of the museum were very cool. It was fun to see the variety they had. One of the dinosaurs had a huge shell! I think they had that variey on the Ice Age movie, the second one if I remember right, swimming in the water. Very interesting, though not necessarily dinosaur-esque, was a large deer with enormous antlers, probably six feet wide. I honestly couldn’t fathom how a deer with antlers that big could hold up its head!

There were a lot of different sections to the museum and we started exploring but really it was kind of irritating because there were kids EVERYWHERE. Nick was seriously worried about tripping on them. So it didn’t take long before I had had my fill and headed on out. The only other thing we saw that I enjoyed was a room filled with birds, stuffed of course, and it was really fun to see the variety there. They even had a display of hummingbirds. They are so tiny! There was one bird that looked barely bigger than a fat bumblebee!

From there we walked over to Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens. We had fun walking through the gardens and just talking and joking together. We visited the statue of Peter Pan there, which was fun. Nearby were the most apathetic swans I’ve ever seen. You could walk right up to them and they wouldn’t move. Nick stepped around one and said, “No problem, buddy. I’ll just go around.” Weird.

We ended up at the fountain memorial for Princess Diana which was actually very different. The fountain is more like a stream. It’s circular and runs from the top of the little hill to the bottom. You can actually walk through it, which a lot of people were doing, and I decided I needed to have that experience. So I walked the full length of it. The water was very cold but it felt good and the walk was very interesting because there are all these different parts to the fountain. In some areas it was completely calm and others had steps to go down or water spurting up from the ground and one area was almost shaped like a water slide. It was a neat experience and although I don’t know much about Princess Diana, I did try to think of her while walking through her pool.

Roman had to go soon and Nick suddenly suggested that perhaps he and I could go to another show like Wicked that evening. We both really loved our experience with that so we were definitely up for another. But we had very little time to figure things out. So we said goodbye to Roman and went back to Leicester Square to look at tickets. I was up for a few different shows but Nick was more picky. In the end, we decided we would give Lion King a try – we love African music - but that sent us to another area. So we were hustling through town and when we got there the place was full of kids and they only had very expensive seats left. They did have some “standing” seats available for pretty cheap but I wasn’t about to stand for two and half hours, especially when my feet were already tired. So we gave up on that possibility.

We checked out Piccadilly Circus but we didn’t understand what the buzz was about. It had a little statue in the middle and shops all around and that it. Oh well. So we called it good and went back to the hostel to get ready for our departure the next day.

When we passed through the pub, we saw that a World Cup game was on so I thought it appropriate that we join the Londoners and get a real European experience. So we took our laptop downstairs and surfed the web while watching Spain vs Germany. It was fun to feel the energy there, especially when anyone got anywhere near the goal. Haha.

So that’s it! Our trip was at a close and now we had the journey of getting home ahead of us.

PHOTOS:

(Again, these photos are not my own. Details can be found on Day 36)

This is a view from the outside of the Tower of London. Where the grass is on bottom is where the moat used to be.

Here is a view of Traitors Gate on the right. There was water on bottom so I'm not sure if they crossed the moat or came in from the River Thames or what.

The Bloody Tower! Those poor kids were only 12 years old. I am a bit confused at how many family members have killed one another for power but I suppose family relations weren't the same as they are today.

This is the Queen's House. I am not sure whether the current queen actually stays there but I know some of the Warders do. Notice the guard on the left.

This is the memorial where the chopping block used to be. Anne Boleyn and many others lost their lives (and their heads) here.

This is the entrance to see the royal jewels and such. There was a line coming out of it when we went.

And here is a Yeoman Warder, called a beefeater. I got my picture with our beefeater guide but sadly that is lost now.

St. Paul's Cathedral has the second largest dome in the world, or so I've been told. I only peaked inside but the outside was plenty impressive enough.

The very cool Natural History Museum building. It was like a church and castle and government building all put together.

Just one example of the cool dinosaur bones they have in that place. I would have liked to explore more if my feet weren't killing me and the place wasn't flooded with kids.