Tower of London

A rainy day at the Tower of London

After a fantastic 15 hour night’s sleep, Matt and I both woke up on our second day in London ready to take in the sights.  What to do?  What to do?  Well, the first thing we MUST do is partake in a little English tradition: Fish and Chips.  Ah, the glorious fish and chips.  They even have shops in London (called “chippers”) specifically for fish and chips.  Matt and I walked in with our appetites on our shoulders and proceeded to dive into the enormous amount of chips and equally enormous piece of fish.  Ahhh, a little piece of heaven!

Ok, with that out of the way, what next?

Since we seemingly covered 75% of the sights the day before, the only real glaringly obvious sight to be seen remained: the Tower of London.

I admit it.  I’m a history buff.  I love love LOVE delving into the stories of ancient times, especially in a city that has a history longer than my Aunt Edna’s nose (okay okay, I don’t actually have an Aunt Edna, but if I did she would probably have a big nose).  And I absolutely LOVE the history of kings and queens and all the treachery and drama that surrounds them.  With that said, prior to my trip to London, I envisioned the Tower of London to be just that: a tower.  Maybe even a little similar to Big Ben.  I always knew about it in the context of the Tower of London and London Bridge (“London Bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down…”) but I never really LOOKED at pictures of the Tower of London.  History Buff failure #1.

So you can imagine the look on my face when we arrived at what looks like a town within a city, and realized this was, in fact, the Tower of London.  Not so much a tower, but rather, a palace.  Okay, so some of the buildings within the property have a tower-esque view, but it is seemingly a misnomer nonetheless.  Even more eager to take on this history lesson, we happily paid the £44 entry fee and walked in.  Along with 10,000 other eager visitors.

Yep.  It was a crowded day.  Even for a rainy and chilly Saturday.  But not to be deterred, we continued moving on, and found ourselves doing the “walking tour” with the Beefeater tour guides (also called yeomen).  Since it was rainy, their 1 hour walking tour was abbreviated to a 29 minute summation of the property within the chapel.  But boy did we get an earful of information in that 29 minutes!

The Traitor's Gate

Mostly about Henry VIII, who is the most infamous of England’s kings.  And mostly what we learned about was how few people were executed on the grounds of the Tower of London.  Evidently, it was an honor to be executed within the grounds so therefore not many people “deserved” to die at the request of the monarch in such a prestigious area.  Rather, most people were executed on the hill just up the way from the Tower (aptly named, “Tower Hill”).  We also learned that the yeomen who served within the Tower are all former military personnel who served for a certain number of years and are therefore “promoted” to work and live within the Tower grounds.  We also learned that the chapel we were sitting in was constructed by Henry VIII and that several people during his reign (including his 2^nd wife Anne Boleyn) were buried under the chapel’s floors. 

After our quick rundown of the Tower, we ventured on our own around the grounds and learned for ourselves a little more of the history.  Did you know that from the 14^th century until roughly the end of the 19th century, royalty and consulates from around the world would bring the king or queen in power a “gift” of an exotic animal from their part of the world?  For example, the king of Norway brought Edward II (I think) a polar bear, another consulate brought a lion (actually 3), another brought an ostrich, and yet another brought monkeys.  This eventually became the “Royal Menagerie” and was the sight to be seen in the Tower of London for the commoners.  Likewise, many prisoners spent their final days in the Tower, and we witnessed their inscriptions etched into the stones from where they awaited their fate.  We also got to see the sleeping quarters and court of Edward II. 

The "Royal Menagerie"

After we essentially got kicked out of the Tower at closing time (not entirely but close enough), we continued our walk back over toward Westminster Abbey, which we had not seen up close the day before.  By this time, it was coming on 6pm and we were famished.  After all, fish and chips can only take you so far when you’ve walked around for 6 hours!  So after about an hour of trying to get back into civilization, we finally stumbled upon, surprise! ANOTHER Clarence Pub!  The same pub we visited with Stu the day before, only this pub was in Piccadily Circus and much bigger.  We sat down in the warm and cozy upstairs dining, enjoyed a pint and proceeded to eat the best beef pie ever.  It may have had a little to do with our appetites being so big from walking around so much, but even so, this little pie was just about the best comfort food I’ve had in a long while. 

King Henry VIII's Armor

Exhausted, we made our way back to our hotel, but felt we should at least take in a little more of London’s nightlife on a Saturday night.  After all, it is Saturday and when will we be in London on a Saturday again?  So we went to our neighborhood pub, had a pint and glass of wine (Matt the pint, me the wine) and did some fantastic people watching.

All in all, a wonderful day of learning more about the reigns of British kings and queens for this history buff, followed by a great day of English food and ales.  I’d do it again for sure (Even if I had to learn that the Tower was a wee bit more than that).

A layout of the King's Chambers