…is in no danger of falling down, just to ease your mind. I saw it and it looks perfectly fine whatever the song might say.
I got my 8:00 wake-up call and lazed in bed for all of 15 minutes before starting the day. First stop, the Tower of London. I traced out the route to take last night before going to bed, so I knew exactly what lines to take and what stops to get off at. No problem whatsoever. If I lived in London, I wouldn’t even bother owning a car. There’s pretty much nowhere you can go that you can’t get to by train.
I forked over my 14 pounds for entry to the Tower. They call it the Tower, but in reality it’s more like a castle complex along the river. There are several towers, but they’re really more like turrets on the wall than what I thought of as a tower. Especially the White Tower. It actually is mostly white, by the way – dirty white, but still white. It just looked like a three story palace to me. I got to go in to a lot of the buildings in the Tower complex. The only one I didn’t bother going into was the Fusilier’s Museum, which is run by the British Army, I think, and it shows the history of the army. I wasn’t really that interested in it. To tell the truth, although I was really excited about seeing the tower I didn’t find most of it very interesting. The one part that I wouldn’t mind seeing again was the Crown Jewels exhibit. Apparently, that’s where Her Majesty the Queen prefers to keep her valuables. I can think of more secure places, but it’s her stuff, not mine. I wonder what the insurance on that collection is like. Anyway, the Crown Jewels were awesome. They were probably a bit on the gaudy side, but they’re for royalty, so I guess gaudy isn’t necessarily a bad thing. HRM the Queen has quite an impressive collection. Unfortunately, if you want to see it you’ll have to go visit the Tower yourself. They didn’t allow pictures. Worse, that wasn’t the only place my camera was refused entry today.
After leaving the Tower I hopped on a train to Trafalgar Square. I hopped on the train, but it didn’t go anywhere. I had a bit of a comedy of errors with that particular part of the journey. My train wasn’t going anywhere, but the train on the other platform was going to the same place and I saw three of them take off while I waited. I did the obvious. I left my train and went to the other one. I’ll bet you can guess what happened next. Yep, the doors on the train I had just left shut and off she went. Dammit. So I waited on the new train for another 15 minutes or so while the other train came and went quickly. Care to guess if I learned my lesson the first time? I’ll give a hint: no. I abandoned the non-moving train for the moving one, and watched the one I just left take off as soon as I left it again. This time I did learn my lesson, and eventually we actually started moving.
Trafalgar Square is ok. Nothing special. They had a couple of nice fountains, but other than that there wasn’t much to recommend it. The pigeons are brave there. They have absolutely no respect for humans and will just waddle along in front of you like they own the sidewalk. There’s none of that servile scattering that happens with normal pigeons. I took several pictures of the square, especially the monument. It’s a huge, beautiful fountain, and it looks amazing.
From Trafalgar Square I made my way down Whitehall Street with the eventual destination of Westminster Abbey/Parliament in mind. I knew they were both down that direction, and I knew they were near each other, but I didn’t know exactly where they were. As I wandered down the road I took pictures of the occasional monument. Truth to tell I’m a complete idiot when it comes to this country’s government. I had no idea what Parliament should look like, so every building was potentially the right building. I consequently took pictures of random buildings whose purpose I will probably never know. I did stumble on to a few interesting finds along the way. There was one spot where the sidewalk was crowded by a bunch of people surrounding something. I couldn’t tell what from far away, but as I got closer I realized that they were looking at a guard mounted on a horse that was tossing its head. The guard was a member of the Queen’s Life Guard. He didn’t have the obligatory Q-tip hat, but he did have the no-expression, I-just-stand-here-perfectly-still expression that the Q-tips have. At least he was on a horse though. I turned to walk through the place he was guarding with some other people, and on my way through I saw one of his brothers-in-arms. That guy’s job sucked. It absolutely sucked because he didn’t have a horse. What he did have was a crowd of taunting tourists hanging around trying to make him laugh and taking pictures with him. At least they weren’t throwing things. If I’d been him, armed with a sword and surrounded by a dozen annoying tourists, I’d probably start slicing people up. Maybe his youth is what prevented him from doing just that. He looked like he was only 15 or 16. You can smoke at 16 here, but I’m pretty sure you can’t be a guard for the Queen. Beyond the stoic guard was a courtyard of some sort. It had a monument at the end and no grass whatsoever, just this gravelly, dirt-like stuff. Maybe they practice something with horses there. I don’t know.
I turned around and started back out to Whitehall Street to continue on my way. My next little pleasant surprise was 10 Downing Street. That would be the home of the Prime Minister. You can’t really see much of the PM’s house, mostly because you can’t even go down on Downing Street. It’s blocked by a large iron gate guarded by machine gun carrying cops. They take Mr. Blair’s privacy seriously around here. I did take a picture or two – of both the house and the cops with their machine guns.
Finally I reached my destination. Parliament and Westminster Abbey are right next door to each other, so while outside the Abbey I took pictures of both, and the clock tower that holds Big Ben. I decided early on this week when I planned this trip that I wasn’t going to not go into some place interesting just because it costs $30 or $40, after application of the exchange rate, so into Westminster Abbey I went. Unfortunately, you will not be able to view my pictures of the inside of the Abbey because cameras are not allowed. The walls inside the abbey going up and down the main area (nave?) are covered with monuments to Lord this or Lady that. There were also a number of little side chapels that were worthy of exploration. I saw the tombs of several kings, Henry III and Edward the Confessor were among them. I saw Innocent’s Corner. There was a sad story that went along with that, which I heard on the Tower of London Tour. When Richard II, I think, died he left behind two sons age 12 and 10. The oldest boy, of course, was to be the new king. Their uncle, Richard III, was appointed the Lord Protector. He put them in the Tower, which was also one of the royal residences, and the little boys were never seen again. Most people think Richard killed them in order to take the crown himself. About 13 years later their bodies were discovered and were ordered removed and buried at Westminster Abbey. Their tomb became known as Innocent’s Corner. Incidentally, you’ve heard of Richard III even if you don’t know it. He is the subject of a very familiar nursery rhyme by the name of Humpty Dumpty. Interesting, eh?
Another of the more interesting places I saw inside was Poet’s Corner. This is where the likes of Geoffrey Chaucer is buried. There’s also a monument to William Shakespeare. I thought it was pretty cool. On the whole though, the York Minster was a prettier and much more interesting place than Westminster Abbey.
I shouldn’t forget to mention that I saw the Coronation Chair, too. That’s the chair that the King or Queen sits in during his/her coronation, and they’ve been using that chair for hundreds of years. Very cool.
After a wallet-sucking trip to the gift shop, I went back outside. I took more pictures of the Abbey and some faraway shots of Parliament. I did not try going in to Parliament, but I did walk about it a bit. There are some protesters that have set up a sort of semi-permanent protest against the war in Iraq outside it. From there I wandered over the Bridge to where the London Eye spins. I thought about getting on, but after looking at the line I decided against it. Then I wandered back over Millennium Bridge. By this time it was about 4:00, everything was shutting down, and I’d had it with walking. I decided that my last journey for the day would be a pass by Buckingham Palace on my way to the train station. This was way out of my way though. I think it must be about a two-mile walk from where Millennium Bridge ends and the gates to Buckingham Palace. On my way there I passed the Queen’s Life Guard again and walked through King James’ Park on the Diana Princess of Wales Memorial Walk. Very tranquil and almost restful. My feet weren’t buying that. I didn’t linger at Buckingham Palace because that was on my to-do list for Sunday. I did get lost trying to find the train after I passed it though.
I finally got back to the hotel at 6:30 and rested for an hour. Then it was back out to meet a friend in Picadilly Circus. In case you’re curious, it’s London’s tamer version of Time Square. Lots of shops and stuff. We wandered around there and Leceister (pronounced Lester) Square for a while before heading back to the hotel and bed.
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