Our first stop today was the Tower of London which is not, in fact, just a tower.
Towers! Walls! Buildings! Moats! It's got everything.
Even fake lions! (Lions used to live in a dry part of the moat - partly as a form of protection, though mostly as part of the royal menagerie.)
The Tower of London was very cool. You buy admission to go across the moat into the main complex which is quite enormous. Inside there are a bunch of museums and areas to walk around, all of which you can access at your leisure. There are buildings that were lived in, buildings for soldiers, torture chambers, prison cells (for people like Sir Walter Raleigh), an old chapel that William the Conqueror commissioned, and more. Some shots of the interior complex:
A part of the castle that used to be living quarters.
The White Tower. Originally built under the Normans (the cool cathedral that William and Conqueror built was inside, but I couldn't take a picture of it) and then expanded and changed over the centuries. It served many purposes under the different kings.
Walking between all the towers and buildings along one of the interior walls.
More buildings/towers/walls.
The large castle that houses the crown jewels today.
Another shot of the White Tower.
The "Queen's House." Couldn't find a great description of what that means exactly, but a governor of some sort lives in those buildings now.
There was a lot to see in the Tower of London. As I mentioned, we saw the crown jewels (very fancy, very sparkly, reminded me why it's great that America doesn't have kings and queens and how silly I think it is that the British are obsessed with the monarchs) and lots of exhibits on people who lived/were imprisoned in the Tower. We also saw the ravens, which are a famous part of the Tower of London. There was apparently once a prophecy that told a king - Charles II, I think - that if all the ravens left the Tower of London, he would fall as king. So he had all the ravens' wings clipped so they would stay. They still keep them around today and they're all over the place.
They are also quite enormous.
Here are a few other photos of things we saw/did in the Tower of London:
A very large/intricate/accurate astrology drawing carved into a wall by a prisoner who was imprisoned for sorcery. It was one of a ton of graffiti that had been left by prisoners in the Tower over the centuries. (Pretty cool to see Medieval graffiti.)
Michelle "shooting" a crossbow.
Wearing an extremely heavy piece of armor.
The smallest suit of armor in the world (built as a ceremonial suit for a young king) and the largest suit of armor in the world (probably built for a man who was 6'8" - quite literally a giant at that point in time).
The Tower Bridge is right next to the Tower of London, so we walked past that after visiting the Tower and before we stopped for (a totally awesome) lunch. (By chance we found a cool cafe that had delicious sandwiches. Super delicious.) Tower Bridge is not to be confused with London Bridge. I didn't even see London Bridge because apparently it is ugly and nothing to look at. Tower Bridge is the one you think of when you think of a famous London Bridge.
Tower Bridge photo 1.
And Tower Bridge photo 2.
The area we stumbled upon where we found our cool little cafe. Pretty nice, right?
Afterward we went over to the British Museum which is basically the main general museum in London. It's filled with tons of historical artifacts from all over the world. It was super interesting - but it's really absurd how much stuff from Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece, Ancient Everywhere is in that museum. During colonization the British (and the French to a great extent as well) pretty much just stole all these priceless artifacts and then refused to give it all back. Yes, it was really amazing to see the Rosetta Stone...but shouldn't the Rosetta Stone be in Egypt or Greece? And the rooms and rooms and rooms of Egyptian artifacts... And, most polemically, the British Museum has pretty much the entirety of the decorative face of the Parthenon. They refuse entirely to give it back to Greece, despite the Greeks demanding that it be returned to them (the Brits took it all when Athens was under the control of the Ottomans; their excuse is that the Ottomans told them they didn't care if they took it all). The museum has a lame little brochure defending themselves ("it's everyone's history, not just the Greeks'!"), but I clearly wasn't convinced.
Anyway, my point is that it was all extremely cool to see - but it really is a shame that there is so much that should clearly be in other countries.
The outside of the British Museum. It's a huge building.
The inside courtyard of the museum with this crazy glass ceiling.
After the museum we walked to this nice little shopping area called Covent Gardens and peeked into some shops until we got too cold and had to sit down in a pub and have a beer. The area was very pretty - and very different. There seem to be lots of different areas in London.
Pretty little shops. Looking at this photo, it almost makes me think of Old Town.
The main square in this Covent Gardens neighborhood.
Whew, and I think that is all of London. We definitely did a lot of touristing, so I think I saw a lot. On Saturday I might stop by Westminster Abbey/Parliament again (since we didn't make it back there) but overall I'm pleased with everything I saw!
Oh, and I also realized that one of the reasons that London doesn't feel super foreign is because the people really don't look that different than Americans. Yes, they're a bit shorter and slighter on a whole, but they look a lot more like Americans than the French do.
Tomorrow we'll tour around Bristol with Michelle's friend we're staying with and then Thursday we head to Bath for the day. Exciting!
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