London - Tower of London

The London Tube (underground) is really easy to get around on.  Really well marked and as long as you have a subway map you can go most anywhere.  We bought a week pass and you just swipe your pass and away you go as many times as you want.  We caught the tube to Westminster Pier where we got on a "Jump on jump off Boat". 

We rode up the Thames with a narration of the areas we passed.  At Westminster was Big Ben 

and Parliament, Trafalgar Square (we will see that tomorrow).  Our main objective today was The Tower of London and to rest our feet and legs, which riding up river on a boat accomplished, plus we got to see many sights along the river enroute.

  

The London Eye

The Aquarium

St Paul's Cathedral distant right with the dome

Modern buildings

Tower of London

We bought our tickets and entered the Tower Gate

then waited for the very popular Beefeater's tour (Yeomen Warders of the Tower).  

Yeomen Warders are required to have served in the armed forces with an honorable record for at least 22 years.  They are a detachment of "The Yeomen of the Guard", and they've formed the Rroyal Bodyguard since at least 1509.  Their origins stretch back as far as Edward IV.  

They are thoroughly knowledgeable about the history of the tower, (the good, the bad and the ugly about the tower).  Ours today did not disappoint  He entertained us with tales of intrigue, imprisonment, execution, and torture, including the wrack, drawn and quartered, (gruesome).

As we walked around we heard tales about Henry the VIII of couse and Anne Boleyn and others who were beheaded after being imprisoned in the tower.  Over fifteen hundred were beheaded on tower hill above the  enclosed tower.   None of those were buried with their heads.  The heads were impaled on London Bridge for all to see and as a deterrent to traitors or those disloyal to the crown.  The headless bodies were thrown into unnamed graves under the tower Chapel (The Chapel Royal of St. Peter).  Only a few were beheaded in private on the green within the tower.  Queen Anne Boleyn being one of them.  She was buried with her head under the Chapel.  The Chapel, built during the Tudor period was in terrible condition during Queen Victorias reign.  She had it restored to its former Tudor self and ordered that they try to identify all the bodies that were buried in the Chapel.  Only 30 were positively identified one of those being Queen Anne Boleyn.  It is said to be one of saddest places on earth, where all thosed buried, were buried without mourners, ceremony or even dignity.

The Executioner's Gate

The Bloody Tower

Tower Bridge from the Tower of London

We spent so long listening to our Yeoman that we didn't have time to see the Crown Jewels.  The line to get in was really long too.  All of us had seen them before except Ginger and she didn't need to see them.  

One last picture with the Yeoman (Beefeater)

and we headed back to the boat and downriver.  Tomorrow we will go to the Changing of the Guard.