Tuesday, July 21, 2015

Another Busy Day around London


Her Majesty's Royal Palace and Fortress the Tower of London, is an important tourist destination. With 1000's of years of history here, this historic castle served as a royal residence, a fortress, a prison, and now houses the Crown Jewels in an elaborate display. It's best to arrive early before the crowds get too large and the queue to see these priceless treasures is too long. 

The White Tower houses the Royal Armory. We enjoyed a good long visit to the Armory with of course a few moments spent at the torture exhibit, speaking with the Yeoman and learning about the Royal Beasts.




There is a great view of the London Bridge from the Tower of London, and after our tour at the Tower was complete, we put on our walking shoes, walked across London Bridge and headed to the Globe Theater.

This is an amazing recreation of the original Globe Theater which was located just a few blocks away. The original theater burned in a fire, during a performance, fortunately, everyone got out safely. As the story is told, one of the last to depart the theater did so with his pants on fire but he stopped and poured the last of his pint of ale on his pants and put out the fire.

Today if you look closely at the thatched roof you can see a built in water sprinkling system, so that the theater is safe.  The Globe Theater also includes exhibits on Shakespeare's writing, fashions of the day, and more.

Our final destination for the day included a journey to The Who Shop in Upton Park which is a gift shop and Dr. Who museum complete with an entrance thru the Tardis. The museum has props and costumes from the movies and TV series over the years. It was quite an exciting destination.







K9, from 1964 - "back in my day"!

3 comments:

relevanttealeaf said...

Fun activities packed into this day. Wasn't the Tower of London fascinating?

Marilyn Miller said...

I am thoroughly enjoying your visit to England. Tower of London is on my list. Thanks for the getting there early tip.

Linda Jennings said...

What a great day of sightseeing for your family!