After my mom came and we settled in to our hotel (we were staying at the Novotel in Hammersmith). We decided to let her rest up and then start visiting places the next day. That night we planned out the things we wanted to see the rest of the week, but ummm….yeah we kind of overestimated how much we could see. But Thursday morning we got our ambitious selves out of bed and headed to go see The Tower of London. I didn’t know that this place was still in use even in modern times! Such a place of history and we really had a great time exploring. This was the place that King Henry VIII had a few of his wives imprisoned and beheaded!
…..and where many Kings lived.
The Tower of London was began in 1080! Can you believe it? What was truly interesting to me was how the grounds were just dwarfed by modern day buildings around it today. But it was kind of neat to think about it back when it was being built and how it must have been the largest thing for miles, surrounded by empty land. Can you tell I’m sort of a history buff? Yes, it’s a little know fact that I love history, so London was the perfect place for me
We didn’t get to go see Tower Bridge, that was completed in 1894. But it was an impressive structure and great to photograph
After walking through a few more towers and the inner court grounds, we found these two. They were quite perplexed on why the US Navy calls submarines boats and big boats like aircraft carriers are called only ships. Don’t even ask me, I don’t know either, I just use the correct terminology…..and I sure did wish I wore my hat this day….it was BLUSTERY outside!
Finally we entered this building where the Crown Jewels are kept. We weren’t allowed to take pictures inside, but let me tell you, there is some amazing stuff in there! We saw all the crests of the English Royalty, coronation garments, tons of crowns and there’s even a 586 carat diamond in there! HUGE! We also saw a lot of gold servingware for dinners and I saw the hugest wine bowl made out of solid gold that I’d ever seen. The ladel for the wine bowl looked like a shovel!
All in all it was a great day spent wandering around. Some of the most interesting things are all the etchings and carvings in the Tower walls of prisoners kept there! Just amazing! More to come tomorrow!
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