Historic Royal Palaces, Christopher Wren, and The End

If there is one thing you must absolutely do when you go to London, you MUST visit the Tower of London. Admission prices are steep. They are worth it. You should get there early, and go and visit the crown jewels first. When we first arrived The Tower was practically empty and we walked right in to see the biggest diamonds you'll see anywhere with no line. We actually got to spend a lot of time in there because it was empty enough that we could take our time and double back. No press of people pushing us onward. You cannot photography the crowned jewels, but the rest of the mighty tower is very photogenic:

The White Tower, the original fortress/palace build by William the Conqueror.

 

From the fortified walls you will get the best views of Tower Bridge.

 

The now empty moat of the Tower of London. It's much more hygienic this way.

 Yes, the Tower of London is my #1 most essential site in London. The most essential part of your visit is to take the guided tour with a Yeomen Warder (AKA Beefeater, but they don't like to be called that.)

Here's Lee and our guide in his traditional regalia.

Yeomen Warders are a select group of retired military men who, as a reward for their service, are given the responsibility of guarding the Tower of London, their main responsibility is in giving guided tours. Hilarious, irreverent, informative, boisterous, quintessentially British tours. The tour is included with the aforementioned steep admission price. To not join one of these tours is just robbing yourself. Taking the tour is also the only way for a tourist to visit the chapel where lies buried Sir Thomas More, Anne Boleyn, and Katherine Howard. Our witty guide also hinted that if you wanted to attend a service in this chapel (it still does regular Sunday service) one could attend the service then, according to him, no one monitors whether you leave straight away or whether you wander and visit the rest of the Tower...without paying admission! Call that my dishonest pro-tip.

This is Traitor's Gate: This is how prisoners were brought into the Tower by river, including Elizabeth I when she was imprisoned by her half-sister Mary. The pair of them are buried side by side at Westminster Abbey.

 

Lee stands betwixt two great London icons: The White Tower and Tower Bridge.

 

On the left you can see another Yeomen Warder tour, the large building behind me is home to the crown jewels.

 

Inside the White Tower is a display of royal armor and weaponry. This fortress was once home to the armory and weapon stores and the royal mint.

 

This is what Brits do with their old weapons now. Note the pistol claws.





 This room was Sir Walter Raleigh's during the time he spent as a prisoner of the King. He famously wrote a history of Britain, studied botany, and consulted with great minds during his not so strict imprisonment. He was, however, eventually executed.

The Royal Fusiliers Museum at the Tower of London takes us through the history of these London infantrymen all the way down to the exhibits honoring military currently in the service of Her Majesty the Queen. This backpack weighs about 1/4 of what a modern soldier would be carrying on his/her back. I could barely stand with it on.

 

The Tower of London has hosted some unusual prisoners, including hundreds of years worth of animals in the royal menagerie. There are terrific little statues all over as a reminder of that. Here are the monkeys! I believe there is usually a menagerie exhibit, but that was undergoing restoration so the animals have been placed throughout the fortress so visitors can still enjoy them.

Monkeys, Elephants, Lions, Tigers, and Polar Bears (oh my!) have lived and died in these walls, most died premature deaths as the conditions and care were inadequate. The Polar Bears were allowed to fish in the waste-filled moat (died shortly thereafter), The lions and tigers were accidentally allowed to intermingle and an epic cat fight killed some of them. One sadistic king liked to bait the lions with dogs for sport.

Tower Bridge--not London bridge--is easily the most famous bridge in Europe.

These days, the Tower holds no more prisoners and all the animals are gone...except the Ravens!

It was at some point predicted that if the Ravens ever left the Tower that disaster would follow and England would fall or something to that effect. A small flock of Ravens has been kept here ever since. Cared for by the Yeomen Warders, the Raven's pretty much have the run of the place, a safe place to sleep, and tourists to charm.

This Raven hopped right up to me and then proceeded to thrill a group of school children as he dug through the trash for the lunches he had just seen them discard. A caretaker ran over to shoo the Raven away, but the bird made off with some leftovers, leaving the caretakers to clean up the scattered rubbish.

 

I loved this view. While you wander around the medieval world, you can look over the walls and see the modern skyline of London. This is a city that is passionate about it's history, there are monuments and museums everywhere, but they keep innovating and creating new wonders. Maybe in a few hundred years, tourists will be paying to get into these historic skyscrapers and learning about British life during the reign of Elizabeth II.

It was time for us to say good-bye to the amazing Tower of London and head down the Thames for lunch and a different view of London. We took the Thames Clipper, passed right under Tower Bridge...

 On our way to Greenwich! Greenwich (pronounced gren-itch) is home to the Royal Naval College, the National Maritime Museum, and most famously the Observatory and the Prime Meridian. GMT, or Greenwich Mean Time, is the point from which all our time zones ripple out from, and the line is found right here.

Lee and I agreed that if we lived in London, we would want to live in Greenwich. There is a definite village feel to the area, much more cozy and relaxed than most of the city, and it still a college town with all the fun that has to offer. Greenwich has a great market with food stands and antiques, street food and markets like this one offer lots of tasty food for those eating on a tight budget. We weren't the only tourists getting our lunch there, but there were lots of local students chowing down, too.

The Cutty Sark, a restored sailing vessel that visitors can--for a price--board and explore!

 

The National Maritime Museum is a free (yay!) museum where you can see some of the trappings of Britain's long history of dominating the seas. If we hadn't just hit our afternoon wall--2-4 PM is a rough time for sightseeing--I would have had a little more energy to really read some of the exhibits and take more of it in. As it is, it was interesting to explore and it was right on the way to the green park and hill that leads to the Greenwich Observatory:

Yes indeed. That view is pretty spectacular! We spent some time learning about astronomy at a free museum next to the Observatory, then we headed back down the hill to the Royal Naval College.

 

This hall is, wall and ceiling, completely painted in decorative frescos. Do you like the little gaggle of tourists behind me in this photo? It was a little awkward to take the photo with them in the background in the first place, but it is even more awkward now that I get to look at their little faces for the rest of my life, every time we look back on our trip.

 

Directly across from this was a beautiful chapel (I am so over the no photos policy that is so prevalent throughout London's churches) where it seems that the vocal department was hosting a little master class. It was a little nostalgic for me to sit and listen to them, though it was a more lavish setting than I have ever rehearsed in.

Another Christopher Wren dome, not quite as famous--or large--as St. Paul's.

We took the train back through London and passed through part of the downtown financial district, which was yet another side to the city we hadn't seen yet, and we made our way to the night life and party zone of London in Leicester Square. We had toyed around with the idea of seeing a West End show while we were in town and finally decided that we should go for it. Leicester Square is home to the half-priced ticket booth where we picked up a couple tickets for Phantom of the Opera.

For those who don't know, the West End is like the Broadway of Europe. Shows like Les Miserables, Mary Poppins, Cats, and hundreds of others open on the West End first and then Broadway.

I remember as kid visiting London and seeing Les Miserables and realizing, "Oh my gosh, these are the same voices from my CD at home!" Some of the same actors were still playing the roles 10-15 years later. We saw a fantastic production of Phantom of the Opera, just one of many dynamite shows on in London today.

While we were waiting for the show to start, we realized we hadn't gotten any iconic telephone booth's in our photos, so we snapped one with the banner for the show in the background. There wasn't even a phone in this booth, interestingly enough.

Our last day in London was kind of an abbreviated day for sightseeing, so I am just going to tack it on the end of this post. We spent probably 2-3 hours riding buses to get to our destination, the train line we needed was down for maintenance. There was a point where I started to believe that we would never get off this bus, that we had actually died in a crash and were now in bus purgatory where souls go when they have died before reaching their destination.

We did, however, eventually get off the bus. But because it took so long we only had 2 hours to visit before our sight closed, so here is our whirlwind visit to Hampton Court Palace:

 

Originally built for Thomas Cromwell, this palace was gifted to Henry VIII when his fallen favorite was trying to win back Henry and save his own neck. Henry VIII didn't forgive Cromwell, but he kept the palace and took up residence here, along with several of his wives in quick succession.

 

Edward, Henry's only son, was born here. Anne Boleyn's initials are carved into the woodwork of the Great Hall, this palace is one of the only residences of Henry VIII still standing.

 

Henry and Catherine of Aragon showed off their wealth and power in a tourney with France using a fountain just like this one, only that fountain ran with wine instead of water!

Feasting in the Great Hall in seats fit for a king.

 

 

 

The carved ceiling of the Great Hall was one of the great marvels of the day. Included are little faces in the eaves, "Eavesdroppers," to remind guests that the King was always listening...

 

The Kitchen's are huge as they had to be able to feed hundreds of courtiers. There were chefs in that day, reading from a Renaissance cookbook, dressed up in historic costumes, following a recipe to recreate the food from the time of Henry VIII. It was really neat to see them working!

Those are real roasting chickens, by the way. The fireplace seemed a popular place that day as it was pretty darn cold out.

Lee and the big man himself: Henry VIII as painted by the great Hans Holbein.

There is a fun little hedge maze in the gardens of Hampton Court, lots of kids seems to be getting a real kick out of trying to get lost from their parents.

 

 The later kings who lived at Hampton Court tried to tear down the out of fashion Tudor palace and remake it in the classical styles popular at the time, so they hired none other than Christopher Wren! There was a very obvious effort in this part of the palace and garden to imitate Versailles. Of course, all imitations fall short of Versailles overwhelming grandeur. Luckily they ran out of money before they could finish their extreme home makeover. Now the palace is half and half, a weird rift in time.

And thus ended our sight seeing trip! We spent our last night in Anerley, renting the spare room in a woman's flat, and from there it was a pretty short trip to get to the airport. We were happy to come home, to see Paul again, and to rest our aching feet.

What an amazing trip! Here is the last photos, out the window on our flight home. Flying on a clear day can be mind boggling, especially when you can look out your window and see ICELAND!

 

That is it for my trip posts! I have a few travel tips I'd like to share, I'll save those for another post. If anyone is planning to visit Paris, London, or anywhere really, I would be happy to help plan, prepare or share resources. Keep an eye out for some travel tips coming your way, whether you want them or not.

A Stroll Along the Thames

If you every decide to visit London, I highly recommend following the itinerary I invented for our day, especially if the weather is nice. This was the perfect way to enjoy the London skyline and take it some great history and culture. Just skip the getting-on-the-wrong-bus-right-off and the whole rest of the day will go smoothly. First stop: Westminster Abbey! The great church where Monarchs are crowned, buried, and married.

The audio guide is free (church touring is not) and the narrator is none other than SCAR! You know, Scar? From the Lion King? Jeremy Irons? Yeah, anyway, photography not allowed inside the cathedral. We took a few photos outside and inside this other room before we noticed the sign indicated no photos were allowed in there either. Oops.

Surely I'm not the first person to miss the tiny sign while looking at the windows.

 

Westminster Abbey doesn't seem to be as big as Notre Dame, at least it doesn't feel as big, but it is packed with the burials and memorials of Britain's rich and famous. Henry V, Elizabeth I, Edward the Confessor, a lot of royal bigwigs and random rich people you've never heard of, plus memorial plaques and monuments for Shakespeare, Dickens, Handel, Purcell, Austen, Tennyson...the list goes on! The Abbey is also home to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, so that is the second one we've seen on our trip.

Literally next door to Westminster Abbey is Parliament!

You should be singing "Britannia Rules the Waves" in your head right now.

The seat of the government here in London is also home to the worlds most famous clock tower and the worlds most famous bell: Big Ben. Just to be clear, Ben is the bell, not the clock or the tower.

 

 

You can visit the House of Commons or the House of Lords, we didn't end up visiting Parliament beyond taking a few photos from the outside. We took a stroll along the South Bank--which has been fairly recently gentrified--and enjoyed the sunshine and buskers. We walked right by the London Eye, but neither of us were too keen on waiting or paying for the ride. We enjoyed our stroll, stopped for lunch, and made a stop in at the Tate Modern Art Gallery.

 

Another one of London's free attractions (to make up for how pricey admission is at the rest, I guess) the Tate was interesting and stupefying and confusing, as modern art often is. We liked this big piece: a collection of odds and ends put together in a fabulous way.

Andy Warhol's iconic Marilyn Monroe.

 

There were these fold up stools available for people to carry around the galleries so they can sit to examine the art, we used a couple because our feet were already tired and it was only midday.

Tate Modern's balcony provides a really great view of St. Paul's Cathedral and the millennium bridge. Which is where we are heading next. but first a brief detour for...

The new Shakespearean Globe Theatre! If it had been summer, we would have had standing room tickets like the paupers we are, but that wasn't really an option this time around. So we just paid homage to the Bard from a distance and carried on across the river.

A view on the Thames

 

Behind me is the industrial age smoke stack of the Tate Modern.

And we cross the river to visit St. Paul's Cathedral for the Evensong service. Some good information for church the aficionado: London's biggest churches charge admission for tourists, not for worship services. If you want to visit the church, save some money, and don't mind missing the tombs and smaller chapels that are on the far side of the quire, attending a service is well worth it. Evensong starts at 5, but they opened the door to us at 4:15, so we had lots of time to see the open portions of the church before the service. Both Westminster Abbey and St. Paul's does an Evensong service everyday where the psalms are sung or chanted by the choir and accompanied by the organ. I don't think you get a full experience in a big cathedral unless you hear some music, the spaces are meant to be filled with song. Baroque and Renaissance choir music really makes sense in a grand church in a way it doesn't always in a different venue. The choir at St. Paul's is spectacular, the interior (no pictures allowed) is impressive. We actually got to sit right up near the choir during the service.

 

And there you have it! If you want to add a bit to your perfect London day, you could go up on the London Eye, tour Parliament, or take in a Shakespeare play. You could even do the whole day in reverse by touring St. Paul's in the morning and attending Evensong at Westminster Abbey. To all my friends and family who are planning, thinking of planning, or dreaming of planning a trip to London, take my advice: Do a day just like this one!

'Mind the Gap' and all that Jazz...

We left our cozy little hotel on the Left Bank in the wee hours to catch the Eurostar to London. The streets were empty, the sky was dark, and the morning baguettes were just being delivered. We were already worn out by the time we got to London, either that or the pace of London is so much more intense that we felt slow by comparison.

Parisians stroll. Even on busy streets during rush hour, people were walking at a stately pace or steady clip. In London, regardless of the time of day, commuters are basically running all the time. Limping along on blistered toes, I thought I was going to get trampled in the tube station. Despite the rush of people, they all lined up and took turns boarding the fullest trains.

We stayed at a hostel near King Cross station, which turned out to be a really hopping neighborhood, a complete contrast to the sleepy little street in Paris where we'd stayed. But it was nice to be close to a station where it was so easy to make bus and tube connections. When we got to London, went to the nearby British Museum first thing:

 

This was Lee's first visit to the BM, here he is symmetrically flanked by tourists.

 

I believe our free audio guide (a la ricksteves.com) said that this enclosed courtyard is the size of a football field. I believe it. My aching feet are a testament to how big this museum is, let alone the courtyard.

The Rosetta Stone is probably the most ogled rock in Britain. There is a replica in one of the other rooms that you can touch, I think it is worth it to see both.

You have no idea how hard it was to get a picture with no other shoulders or heads in it. That is why it's a close up.

 The Egyptian collection here is extensive. If I remember rightly, it's the largest collection of Egyptian artifacts outside of Egypt. There are mummies and sarcophagi galore. We liked the remnants of this big ole statue. Lee accepts a fist bump from a Pharaoh many millennia dead.

 

There are some impressive Assyrian carvings--most notably the lion hunting flats--not to mention like six of these winged, man-headed lions. I really like these guys, I suppose because they look like they walked out of a bible story. They probably did!

 

Of course, the oh so controversial Elgin Marbles: stolen, or gifted, or rescued, or whatever from the Parthenon in Greece. This fellow stood out to me as being particularly photogenic, maybe because he has a head...

 

As you can see, most of his buddies have long since lost theirs.

 A pretty large number of Grecian treasures live in England now, including practically a whole temple. I had such deja vu visiting this room. I have a picture of my sister Lisa and I posing in front of this monument from 2001, was a crazy experience to come back after so many years.

The Nereid Monument, almost completely reconstructed.

We had only one other destination for our first day in London: St-Martin-in-the-Fields in Trafalgar Square.

St-Martin-in-the-Fields is known for it's music. There are always concerts going on there. The main church is where the classical music concerts happen, down in the crypt there are weekly jazz concerts. The café that rests on top of the final resting place of some old Brits hosts a different jazz group every Wednesday night. It was a blast!

Trafalgar Square after dark.

 

St-Martin-in-the-Fields

 

At our table in the Crypt.

 

Under our feet are memorial plaques for the dearly departed of the parish.

As you can see, the Crypt wasn't creepy or dank, it was really quite comfortable! It would be a fun place to get dinner or lunch even if there weren't a concert on. We returned to our hostel to sleep via a much calmer Kings Cross Station. The late hour meant there wasn't a queue of school children so we could do this...

 

The icing on top of our exhausted and exciting first day in London was being awakened at midnight by the Germans down the hall who couldn't get their door to latch properly. So they slammed the door. Repeatedly. For and hour. We slept better the next night.