LONDON DAY FIVE

Saturday, our fifth day in London, saw our first attempt to make our morning routine less hectic—and it worked. Seems like the trick is to send Chris out on an errand while I dry my hair, thus reducing the time he has to spend in our room-turned-sauna, and I have a bit more space to move around.

We met Brad, and headed off to the Underground to head for the Tower of London. As we came street-side from the underground and I saw the Tower of London, I must admit I was surprised that the Tower of London isn’t a tower at all, but rather a whole complex of walls, towers and other buildings. The buildings range over hundreds, even thousands of years. There was quite a lot of interested stuff to see there, from the medieval castle, to old armor, information about prisoners and torture at the Tower of London, and of course the Crown Jewels. Now, I could highlight many things from our time at the Tower, but one of the things that really surprised me was that despite the incredible jewels used in some of the modern pieces, many earlier crowns were actually made with borrowed jewels! Seriously?! So today, except for just a few pieces, the pieces at the Tower of London either have no jewels in them, or have crystals replacing jewels, that, well, had to be returned to their actual owners after used for a coronation!

The crowds at the Tower of London were also quite impressive—for this reason we opted to walk on our own through the buildings, since the Beefeater’s tours seemed each to draw a hundred people or more! We also, thankfully, managed to beat the crowds to the Crown Jewels, so our wait was minimal, and we had a good deal of time to pass by the pieces. They’re certainly, and understandably quite serious about guarding those things though!

We also happened to be at the Tower for the anniversary of Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation, and so got to see the 1 pm 62-gun salute (after about a dozen shots we started wandering off towards the Tower Bridge).

Our next stop, Tower Bridge, was also quite interesting. We paid for the tour, which takes you to the upper walks of the bridge, then also into the engine room. It was really interesting, and a great vantage (on a surprisingly sunny day) to see the area. We enjoyed the exhibits for kids in the engine room as well, as we learned how the bridge’s hydraulic lifts work. When you think of the “London Bridge,” you’re probably thinking of the Tower Bridge. The London Bridge (1) has never fallen but (2) has been replaced several times, because it’s been old and (3) is no more interesting than the new bridge over 70 in Frederick.

After our visit to the Tower Bridge, we walked along the south bank of the Thames, grabbed a quick lunch, then leaded to the Tate Modern [Art Museum]. By this point, we were trying to decide our plans for the rest of the day. Brad had plans to meet a high school friend for dinner, and Chris and I had thought of visiting St. Pauls or Westminster (which we’d walked by but not enter on our first day). After looking through the first floor of the gallery, Chris and I headed off, and Brad, I think, stayed there a bit longer.

Chris and I headed for St. Pauls, since we could walk to it, and though they were no longer accepting people for tours for the day, we double check, and sure enough Evensong was scheduled for 5 pm, and no fee is charged for that. We killed a but of time, the about a half hour out, went back, and got into the church. We hadn’t decided whether to stay for Evensong, and after looking around for a bit, decided to head back to our hotel and to grab dinner, since at this point, our feet were just plan, well, done for the day. The whole travel on the Underground for the day had been a bit more complicated because line construction completely shut down one of the lines (the Circle line).

On the way, we decided to visit Covent Gardens (we still needed dinner) and there found, well, just about the whole of the population of London. The Underground station at Covent Gardens actually requires you to take an elevator between track level and street level, but the line was unimaginably long so we opted for the stairs…all 193 of them! No, I did not count them. To their credit, the Underground folks post lots of signs and make lots of announcements warning you how many stairs there are. It was a very, very tall spiral staircase (which, though, after all the towers at the Tower of London, wasn’t overly impressive!).

The whole place was buzzing with people—all sorts, couples, families, anyone, and for the first time in a while, it really felt like we were amongst the British…not the tourists. People were bustling about getting dinner, checking out the shops and going to shows. Our plans to find dinner were frustrated by the fact that it was SO busy that there was hardly a spare table to be seem for blocks. We were tired, a bit bewildered in the crowds, and hungry. We decided to finally head back to Paddington, and then grab dinner there, which we did, at a nice place a few blocks from our hotel. The restaurant, Garfunkels, is perhaps a mix between TGI Fridays and Bob Evans. The food was good, and the rest was welcome. After a filling meal, we headed back to our room to rest, type up a couple days of trip log, and maybe, if we feel up to it, to trek to the McDonalds for some internet.