Day 3 22 May 2019 London / Tower of London

We both slept pretty well last night. Deb was up at 3:15 and me at 5:30. It’s light here from 4:30am to 9:30pm (sunrise and sunset are a bit after and before these times).
We had prebooked The Tower of London for today and a guided tour started there at 10am.
After we got ourselves ready for the day, we set out on foot for the Tower, about 4 miles away at around 8am. It was a very interesting walk, through many famous areas and Monopoly properties.

Rubbish collection here is very different from home. It’s all put out on the curbside in plastic bags, and we guess collected manually sometime during the day. Like we did at home 30 years ago!

Quite a few buildings around town are decorated extensively with flowers, some have their whole frontages covered in colourful flower displays, all to celebrate the Chelsea Flower Show that is on at the moment. (We are heading there tomorrow).

We walked through Piccadilly Circus, the fringe of the West End,  Leister Square, Trafalgar Square, The Strand and skimmed past the Bond Street financial area. Like so many cities of the world, ours included, there are many permanent homeless around London. Some have constructed small shelters in unused nooks and made them as comfortable as possible. There are also many homeless who sit on the footpaths with hats/cans out after “spare change”, others are actively begging. Very sad.

Our walk took us down to the Thames River side about 1km east of Westminster. The tide was out and the gravelly river bed was exposed. There are a few buildings being constructed along the riverbank, so the pathway meandered around a bit. There are many dedicated bike lanes in London, and the bike riders are numerous, unrelenting and often aggressive. It reminded me of Amsterdam.

We arrived at the Tower at around 9:30am and went in to have a look at the Crown Jewels before the crowds arrived. We walked straight in and there were maybe 15 others in the jewel rooms, Deb has read that it can get very crowded in there and you are 5 or 6 deep in the crowds straining your neck for a glimpse. The jewels are incredible, the Kohinoor diamond is amazing as is the large ruby and saphire that adorned the crowns. Not to mention the solid gold items, including the largest punch bowl I have ever seen, in solid gold!  Deb was expecting to see necklaces and rings as part of the crown jewels exhibition and didnt realise that the ‘jewels’ were in the crowns.  So many jewels, and so large, such onornate crowns.

At 9:55am we made our way to the moat by the entrance bridge for our tour. The tour guide, Steve, was a Yeoman (or Beefeater), he was a Royal Marine Warrent Officer who had served in the Falklands war. He and 37 others guards live at the Tower.  At one time he lived in Isaac Newtons house in The Tower. It was a free tour, and my guess was that there were around 200 people in our group.

Steve was very funny and even more informative of the history and many falacies surrounding the famous people who had lived there, been imprisoned there and others who met their end at the end of an sword/axe. It is said that the small chapel in the Tower grounds is the saddest place on earth, with over 1500 buried under its floor. There are 20 Towers on the 18 acre Tower of London site. All have been in constant use since they were built, being used at various times as prisons, homes, hospitals, armouries, offices and today many are museums.

Two of Henry VIII’s wives met their ends at the hands of an executioner there. Catherine Howard by an axe and Anne Boleyn by a sword. Anne was one of only a few that were buried with their head, most who were beheaded had their heads end up on public display on London Bridge to demonstrate the absolute authority of the Monarch. An axe and chopping block used for an execution are on display on the top floor of the White Tower. We were told that you were lucky if your head was taken in one chop, many executions got messy with multiple swings of the axe/sword. Thousands are buried around the site in unmarked and unknown graves.

Monarchs are prepared for their coronation at The Tower before making their way to Westminster for the ceremony. Queen Elizabeth I, was held captive in The Tower by her cousin Mary for years before being released, only to return later to prepare for her Coronation.

We finished up our time at The Tower with a walk around the walls and into Bloody Tower (where Sir Walter Raleigh had lived and worked, writing his History of the World book). The Tower is so interesting in so many ways.

After we left the Tower we took time to sit and look at the Tower Bridge/Thames River and the world passing by, before getting a river boat up the river to Westminster. The boat was full, mainly with european school children, all with their phones out taking photos of everything and waving to everybody we passed.

Getting off at Westminster was very different to the last time we were here. Big Ben and some of the houses of parliament are covered in scaffolding for cleaning and repair. The eastern clockface of Big Ben has been revealed after cleaning and restoration. The numbers and hands are a stunning, bright royal blue, I always thought they were black, but that was just years of grime build up.

There were quite a few protesters around the back of parliament house, equally for and against Brexit. There was also a significant police presence.

We also saw lots of older students piling into a phone box to see how many they could fit in.   They were up to the rooftop! Was funny. ??

Deb then got google maps out on her phone and we took the scenic, less troden route home. After we both took some wrong turns.  Getting lost we found ourselves out the front of Buckingham Palace! ? Was supposed too be a 2km walk to get home, think we made it 3km.   We arrived back to our flat about 2pm, tired, hungry and a tad grumpy.   But was a great morning (with the exception of that last kilometre! ?) We walked well over 20,000 steps today.

Chelsea Flower Show tomorrow.

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