More London Sites

After our morning visit to Abbey Road as mentioned in my last post, we walked around the area, got a coffee and some breakfast and then headed for the Tower of London.

The Yeomen of the Guard, also known as the Beefeaters, are body guards of the British Monarch.  They live within the walls of the Tower of London and run the day to day operations.  The E R on his uniform stands for Elizabeth II Regina, meaning Queen Elizabeth II.  If Charles becomes King one day, the uniform will read C R.

Tower of London

Traitors' Gate, this leads to and from the Thames River and is where prisoners would be brought into the tower.  Most notably Anne Boleyn, Catherine Howard, and Queen Elizabeth passed through here.

We followed a Beefeaters tour around the complex with a very funny guide.

The Jewel House where the Crown Jewels are held.  We couldn't take photos inside of course, but I can say they were beautiful.  The Crown Jewels were moved here after they were stolen from Westminster Abbey in 1303.  The Imperial State Crown, Imperial Crown of India, the Crown of Mary Modena, and the Crown of the Queen Mother are all held here.  The Crown of the Queen Mother features the Koh-i-Noor Diamond which is 105 carats.  The Imperial State Crown features 2,686 diamonds, 273 pearls, 17 sapphires, 11 emeralds, and 5 rubies.  Not bad, if you as me.

Of course there are Royal Guards stationed outside of the Jewel House and they march up and down the length of the building.

This is where the private executions took place within the Tower of London.  Most of the executions were public and up on Tower Hill which is outside of the walls.  The base says, "Gentle visitor pause here awhile. Where you stand death cut away the light of many days. Here jeweled names were broken from the vivid thread of life.  May they rest in peace while we walk the generations around their strife and courage under these restless skies."

The second base names those who were executed on the green.

William, Lord Hasting 1483

Queen Anne Boleyn 1536

Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury 1541

Queen Catherine Howard 1542

Jane Boleyn, Viscountess Rochford 1542

Lady Jane Grey 1554

Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex 1601

Highlanders Farquhar Shaw 1743

Samuel Macpherson 1743

Malcolm Macpherson 1743

We left the tower of London and had a fantastic meeting with some great people.

We originally got connected to Ornella Mastrogiovanni through Facebook.  My Dad and Ornella had originally started talking and he mentioned that I would be visiting London during the summer.  Through pure coincidence Ornella e-mailed me a week before Dad came to visit saying that she would be in London to pick up her daughter from a dance school and wanted to know if we could meet.  We arranged to meet at one of the train stations and have lunch.  It was amazing to meet new found family, hopefully we will see them again.

After our lunch with Ornella we were craving something sweet and we had yet to have proper tea while Dad was in London so we headed to Selfridge's.  We both had the Cream Tea, which included a pot of tea, a plain scone, a fruit scone, jam, and clotted cream.  We also got a coffee walnut piece of cake.

Finally, we headed for the London Eye.

View from the base.

One of the pods that is on the "observation wheel".  Each pod holds about 20 people, but getting into the pod is slightly nerve wracking.  The wheel never stops moving, but the wheel is large enough that one full rotation takes 30 minutes.

View of Parliament, Big Ben, and Westminster Abbey from the top.

After our trip around the wheel we decided to take a leisurely walk back to our neighborhood, but we were exhausted by 11:00 pm so we split ways and agreed to meet the next morning.