Locked in the Tower – Monday, March 9, 2009
Spring Break should be about sleeping until noon or so, but this morning I was up at 7:30 as I wanted to get a good, early start to my day. Unfortunately the power of the internet decided that it would eat up about an hour of my morning before I headed out the door. Actually this was actually a good thing in that my first destination of the day, The Tower of London, does not open up until 10am. After a non-eventful tube ride, I made my way to the ticket booth, purchased my ticket and went inside the fortress.
As I entered the Tower complex, I immediately went for the closest area I could tour: the Medieval Palace and the South Wall Walk. I slowly made my way through all the rooms, and along the wall took some pictures of Tower Bridge. Eventually, I wound up on the eastern wall and from there I found myself next to the building that houses the Crown Jewels. The great thing is that since this was the off season, when I went inside there was maybe 2 other people. That meant getting take a pretty good look at the crown jewels and other exhibits without having to fight through a crowd. I will say that it is a pretty impressive collection. I likened it to being somewhat like going to see the Declaration of Independence and Consitutiion at the National Archive in DC, since they are both symbols of the source of power for each government (crown vs. people) and serve as a link to the past.
I walked though a few of the other buildings, including where some prisoners were kept, but eventually I would head back out. I had other places I wanted to see and it was starting to get close to lunch time since I skipped on breakfast. I also made my way over to Tower Bridge and crossed that, but I did not realize that one could go inside the of the bridge. Although I am sure it would have been interesting, I just didnt feel like paying for another admission ticket. Upon crossing, I made my way back up along the bank of the Thames passing the HMS Belfast and a market before reaching London Bridge.
Crossing here I found myself in the City and found myself again walking along the banks of the river until I eached Millenium Bridge, which most people know about due to the original design that caused to to sway when it first opened. Unfortunately, that was corrected shortly after opening years ago, so there was going to be no bouncing around on my walk across. On the other side of the bridge is the Tate Modern, but I actually decided to pass up going inside. I'm really not much of an art person, especially when it comes to modern art. Instead, I continued with my walk before catching a train north to the British Museum. After getting oriented and setting my priorities for what I wanted to see here, I headed in the direction of the Rosetta Stone. As I entered the room there a was decent size crowd and then BAM! it’s the Roseta Stone just sitting there. It’s a pretty impressive piece of rock, and everyone was just staring it….not that they could have probably read any of those languages (not that I could either)....
I wondered around for a few more hours spotting mummies, ancient Roman and Greek antiquities, and countless other treasures. Overall, it was a very interesting museum, but in terms of looting antiquities (aside from mummies) I am going to have to give it to the Germans, after seeing the Pergamon Altar and the Ishtar Gate in Berlin last year. Those are just so much more impressive (and massive!) than some of the reconstructed structures that I found in the British Museum.
Not knowing where to go next I headed towards Piccadilly Circus again to contemplate my next move….which would ultimately lead me to the National Gallery. I probably spent about an hour here trying to appreciate the arts, but for the same reasons I state above, I really don't remember any specifics of what exactly I saw. With that being said, it was still an interesting way to pass the time.
At this point I headed back in the direction of Parliament, eventually finding myself a bench near the London Eye. I had wanted to see the building light up for the night and about 20 minutes later the lights were starting to come on. I watched as the city started to slip into the night and walked back across the bridge, taking as many pictures as I could before my battery died. With no other sights that I could think of for the day, I headed back to the hotel, stopping at a fish and chips joint across the street first to pick up some dinner.
I settled in for the evening after finding out that I could watch BBC One on the TV without paying the 5 pounds for the remote. Downside was that I couldn’t change the channel, or the volume, but TV is TV, and provided some background noise as I wrapped up the day and packed up to leave the next morning for Paris!