Tower of London

July 13, 2013

Today was another hot day in London and I ended up doing a lot of walking; from the Bank train station to the London Bridge, across the bridge, then over to the Tower of London – walked all around there, and then walked across the Tower Bridge to the park on the opposite side of the River Thames, then back. For those of you who are familiar with London this may not seem like all that much walking, but what you don’t know is that I went the wrong way several times and while I don’t want to make any sweeping generalizations about people in London, all of the people I spoke to today who appeared to me to be locals and of whom I asked for directions shared these two same characteristics: 1) They were very friendly and willing to help me, and 2) They had no clue about where the Tower of London is and they gave me very bad directions. It all began on the train. I had a pretty good idea where I needed to go to be close to the Tower, but when I asked a man who was wearing both a lanyard and a jacket identifying that he was an Underground employee about which train to take to the Tower of London he had absolutely no idea, but as he began to give me directions anyway he was interrupted by a nice, young man standing next to him. He directed me to get off at the next stop and transfer to a North line train and then transfer again to a Center line train. So, I got off and made a long walk to the North line just to find out that it is closed this weekend for construction. So, I walked back to my original train line and got as close as I thought I could (still not being sure what the right stop was). I stopped into a grocery store to get some lunch and in line right in front of me there was a highway worker (wearing the official orange outfit with reflective stripes). I thought for sure that he would know where the Tower is located and so I asked him. He actually directed me to walk in exactly the wrong direction, but in his defense this was right after he told me that the Tower of London is “horrible” and not to go there – to go to Kent instead. I walked for a long ways and figuring I was lost I asked someone else and she was not exactly certain either, but gave me the best directions I received all day.

On my way to the Tower I stopped by the London Bridge Monument and walked onto the Bridge to see the views of the River Thames and London skyline. It is interesting to note that this monument was designed by Sir Christopher Wren who also designed the Kitchen Bridge (aka Wren Bridge) in Cambridge (see Cambridge blog posting for pictures). Sir Christopher Wren was also largely responsible for rebuilding 52 churches in London following London’s Great Fire of 1666.

 

 

I stopped at Café Nero because I remembered reading an article in the newspaper that it was voted as London’s best coffee.

 

Once I arrived at the Tower of London I engaged in a combination of self-guided and Yeoman Warder guided tour of the tower. (The Yeoman Warder’s jokes were so bad that even I couldn’t take it for very long.)

 

The Traitor’s Gate has an interesting history. It is 750 years old and abuts the River Thames. The Royal Family originally used the gate for accessing the tower, but then when the tower became more heavily populated with prisoners the gate was repurposed for bringing in people accused of treason. (Queen Anne Boleyn, Queen Catherine Howard, and Sir Thomas More all entered through this gate, were convicted of treason, and were beheaded.)

 

This is one of the windows as seen from inside one of the chambers.

 

This is a view of the London Bridge from just outside the Tower. Across the River Thames from the Tower is a park and this was part of the fun activities going on there.

 

 

 

View of the Tower from across the River Thames.