Tower Bridge & Tower of London

Being buoyed by the success of our tour of the Globe Theater and thinking that it truly wasn't that far, we opted to walk to the Tower of London which would give us the opportunity to cross Tower Bridge. Walking along the river front also gave us opportunity to see some of the other sites in London such as

St. Pauls Cathedral (which was also on Lisa's list but was closed for renovation during her visit)



The Golden Hinde, at which point we noted that Francis Drake was provided a Knightship by Her Majesty. And this was possible even though he only used rapier during his time period. (okay this is a private joke for SCAdians)


And we ran accross an interesting "mall" type area filled with atmosphere and eateries known as Hay's Galleria which was has been restored to the glories of Hay's Warf

I must say that if we'd had more time I wouldn't have minded catching a bite there to satisfy my curiosity.

The walk also provided us views of London's cityscape


Which of course brought us to Tower Bridge itself


And an outside view of the Tower of London from across the River Thames. The people you see collected are overlooking the famed entrance to the Tower known as Traitor's Gate.


Here is a lovely view of how the Tower of London fits into today's London cityscape


Of course one cannot visit the Tower of London without seeing Traitor's Gate and so we took the opportunity to see it both from the outside

and the inside

I can't imagine how intimidating it must have been to be sent here as a prisoner of the Crown.

But I get ahead of myself. The complex encompassed by the Tower of London is quite extensive


When viewing the interior courtyard it is almost like being in a city within a city


There was quite the crowd assembled and we just barely missed the changing of the guard


But as the crowd dispersed we noted the short que for seeing the Crown Jewels and so that was the first stop. Of course there is no photography so there's no pictures of that except for postcards that may have been acquired.

Luckily the crows were still in residence at the Tower so there's no fear of the Tower falling.


We lucked into a reenactment of sorts and marvelled at the story since we'd missed the larger part of it.


But we were intriqued and decided to see it out to the end and chuckled with some of the inside jokes as indicated in the video below:

With that flavor to round out our visit at the Tower of London, we opted for heading out to catch a bite to eat and heading back home. On our way back to the train station however, we decided to go by the old Roman London Wall

It was still intimidating even though it was only partially in place. We also ran across some signage that told us that at one time part of the London Tower collapsed and at another time the Tower had caught fire. Amazing, and yet it still stood stalwart.