After a good night's sleep, we were ready to hit the streets of London again. On today's agenda, we had three things to see: St. Paul's Cathedral, the Tower of London, and Tower Bridge. Steps logged today: around 20,000 (our pedometer got reset halfway through the day though). Here are our thoughts from today:
Kevin on the escalator
The tube is kind of a crazy place. You either have to walk down or upstairs to get to the lines you want or take crazy steep escalators. Sometimes I think a Willy Wonka glass elevator would get us there more quickly. The escalators are an interesting study in human behavior itself. If you want to stand, you ride on the right. If you want to run or move at a breakneck speed, you move on the left. There is always someone who is in so much of a hurry that they are running on the escalators.
While in the underground, you are constantly reminded to "Mind the Gap," and this is very useful because the "gap" can vary widely from a small step up to a big space to step over to get into the train car. It's a wonder more people don't fall getting into the tube cars because there is always someone running last minute to squeeze in the doors even though the attendants have given the "stand clear" command. I'm pretty sure those are the same people running on the escalators.
We really enjoyed our visit to St. Paul's Cathedral today. We couldn't take any pictures inside since it is a house of worship (except the one time the guide let us snap a picture of the Harry Potter staircase, aka the geometric staircase). It was an interesting mix of stone masonry and elaborate mosaics from later additions to the church. There were a lot of impressive monuments, like the one to Lord Wellington and John Donne's statue. We even went up the 257 winding steps to the Whispering Gallery, but didn't have the wherewithal (or time) to keep going all the way to the top of the dome. Christopher Wren's masterpiece is truly a beautiful piece of architecture.
Kevin had his first experience with pay toilets today. He left to go use the facilities before we went into the Tower of London, and a few minutes later he was back asking for 50 pence. Apparently, 50 pence doesn't get you any kind of a fancy toilet either...lol.
The Tower of London
The chapel where Henry VI supposedly died
The Tower of London took up most of our afternoon and offered some great views from its walls. It is the home of the crown jewels and where many prisoners were held (and tortured). It also used to be the home of the royal beasts, which was quite a collection from what we read. We spent a good deal of time walking along the walls of the tower and going up and down a lot of very narrow stairs. The guards were out for inspection during part of our visit, so that was interesting to see them in all their regalia. The crown jewels (where you sadly could not take any pictures) were SO ornate with some of the biggest jewels I've ever seen. There were also lots of ceremonial swords, maces, and even banquet serving dishes. The most impressive banquet piece was the golden royal punch bowl, which was 3 feet deep and could hold 144 bottles of wine; it also had a massive ladle to go with it. At the Tower, there was also an exhibit of armory and ordinance from different reigns and countries. Henry VIII's well-proportioned armor was on display as well as many others, including the supposed armor of Queen Henrietta Marie's court dwarf.
The White Tower
Fun words we've learned so far:
"jacket potato" which is a baked potato. This was on the dinner menu our first night here, and I asked our waiter what it was. Side note, don't order lemonade here. It's just seltzer/sparkling water with lemon in it. Not the best. I miss iced tea.
"cockup" which is a mess up. Our tour guide in St. Paul's said the latter one (in church no less!)
Tower Bridge
Our last stop of the day was a jaunt across Tower Bridge and up to the walkways overhead. It was cool to see such an iconic landmark up close, and Kevin got to satisfy his inner nerd by getting to see how all the hydraulics worked. Afterwards, we happened to stop for ice cream before heading back across town and were lucky enough to catch the Tower Bridge open and close for a ship passing through.
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