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| Tower of London |
It was built by William the Conqueror in 1066 and enlarged and modified by successive sovereigns. In 900 years it has been a a royal palace and fortress, prison and place of execution, mint, arsenal, menagerie and jewel house and was built to dominate the entry point via River Thames had the reputation of not having its prisoners leaving alive. There had been only 7 beheadings that took place within the tower walls though, the rest took place opposite at Tower Hill. Three of them were queens of England: Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard, wives of Henry VIII, and Lady Jane Grey - condemned on the orders of her cousin Mary. Their bodies are buried under the floors of the on site cathedral. We were told that when they ripped the floor out to repair it years ago they found hundreds of headless bodies down there...the bones were re-buried in a crypt at the back of the church. The towers where they kept the prisoners, sometimes for years, were open to tour and interestingly covered in graffiti/carvings left by those who were imprisoned behind it’s walls and eventually beheaded ...that was probably the coolest part of the tower. Some of it was incredibly intricate and speaks of the hours of time they had to kill up there.
The other rather amusing part of the tour was Henry VIII’s armour….think he was overcompensating for something?
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| Henry VIII's well endowed armour |
When we finished with the tower of London we hightailed it for Westminster Abbey…the rain started falling at this point and it was rather miserable out. Westminster Abbey was really spectacular inside, I always thought it was just a regular church inside but the whole place is like a vast indoor cemetery!
The Abbey has been the coronation church since 1066 and is the final resting place of seventeen monarchs.
The abbey is stuffed with tombs, statues and monuments. Many coffins even stand upright due to the lack of space. In total approximately 3300 people are buried in the church and cloisters. Some of the most famous are Charles Darwin, Sir Isaac Newton and David Livingstone.
No pictures were allowed!
We left the Abbey and braved the storm to take a few pictures of Big Ben and the parliament buildings from across the river.
Big Ben is the nickname for the great bell of the clock at the north end of the Palace of Westminster and is generally extended to refer to the clock and the clock Tower as well. The clock tower holds the largest four-faced chiming clock in the world and is the third-tallest free-standing clock tower.
From there we went to Buckingham Palace and then to Trafalgar square where they had a huge outdoor party setting up for the viewing of the opening ceremonies of the Paralympics that night. They installed a huge screen right in the middle of the square and a crowd was already growing.
We even rode a double decker bus to Leicester square to buy our theatre tickets and find some fish and chips.
We went to see Wicked last night at the theatre…it was absolutely amazing. I can’t recommend it enough, it was such a great play. You must all see it if you ever get a chance! We had a bit of a theatre rumble though. Throughout the first act there was this horrible, rude, selfish girl right behind us talking to her boyfriend and singing along with every song through the entire thing…Sarah eventually turned around and asked them to be quiet and this girl just started swearing at us and kept on talking/singing. At intermission it turned into a rather loud yelling match between us and her, quite the show we put on (should have got a standing ovation!)…. We spoke to an usher who promised to remove them from the theatre if they talk during the second act. We didn’t hear a peep from her again so I think they talked to them in the lobby or something. So the second half was much more enjoyable!
As I write this we are on a 4 hour plane ride from London to Antalya, Turkey. We spent a couple hours this morning in the British Museum before catching out train to Gatwick. That is one huge impressive museum. Their Egypt displays were very
cool.
Once we land we will take a taxi an hour to the southern coast of turkey to a small town called Cirali. We get to spend the next 3 days basking in the sun with a forecast of 36C and sunny! We can’t wait and really need a rest after all that frantic sightseeing!
And yes…that phone booth smelled like urine.
For a laugh...below is the first phonebooth photo we took and had to discard and re-shoot because I look like a midget and Sarah looks like an amazon!!! Had to post it as it was so funny...
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