Another great breakfast this morning, and then we were off to the Tower of London. I’m not sure what I had in mind, but what we found was bigger and better for sure.
We got inside just in time to join one of the guided tours. The guide on these tours is one of the ‘beefeaters’ who is stationed there as a guard. He was quite entertaining and we learned a lot about this huge fortress. Lots of bloody stories, at least. As a surprise bonus, the tour ends in the chapel, which is otherwise off limits.
After the tour we headed into the portion which houses the Crown Jewels. There is a good amount of video information as you wind your way to the actual jewelry. It was neat to see video from the coronation as well as detailed imagery of each piece. Finally we made it to the actual Crown Jewels and they were absolutely brilliant.
After the jewels, we headed to the White Tower to look at an exhibit showing the armaments of King Henry VIII. The guy had so much armor and weaponry that the display covered three floors. Some of the craftsmanship was truely outstanding. Of course, I couldn’t help wondering how they dealt with the rust that had obviously attacked some of the steel pieces. The most interesting weapons were the maces which contained guns as well. You could shoot at your approaching enemy before beating them senseless.
We ended up spending the remainder of the day exploring the rest of the complex. There were lots of little nooks and crannies to investigate. We also spent some time looking at Tower Bridge, and taking some pictures of that. You can go up inside, but it was so incredibly cold today, that we decided against it.
We headed home and since this week is Guy Fawkes night, there have been a ton of fireworks. Too bad we can’t see any of them from out hotel room.
Tags: honeymoon