After that I walked around and found my way to the Tower of London. I wasn't really planning on going in because I don't like paying the best part of £20 to be cramped in with hundreds of tourists, but the guy on the gate offered me a cut price ticket... so off I went, after all I've had a few people tell me it is the best tourist attraction in London etc.
I loved the old buildings, it's really interesting how you can see all the different bits were built at different times, so plain to see! People get so worked up about preserving historic buildings, but you can see four or five totally different styles in this picture! It was actually a functional building which was adapted to requirements for most of it's life... now it's just full of tourists all day.
Guarding the Crown Jewels!!!
Mostly a ceremonial role these days (believe it or not), they have an awful lot more security inside- the walls you pass through to get in to the Jewels room are about a meter thick! I would have posted pictures, but they were pretty strict about the no photos policy in there. I do wonder if these guys get sick of being on display all day. I mean seriously, they just stand there wearing all that in the hot sun, and occasionally maching pompously back and forth for a few minutes before going back to standing there getting their photo taken and looking overly serious. I wonder if they assign it to guys as punishment... it's probably a prestigious role guarding the Crown Jewels and all, but still.
Very impressive, by the way, the jewels. I don't think I ever want to wear a crown, they look damned heavy (and are by the accounts of several monarchs!) I'm trying to remember which queen made a new crown because the other ones were too heavy... Victoria comes to mind, but there were so many that I really wouldn't trust my memory.
I didn't make it to the torture exhibit, where they show you all the things they used on people imprisoned in the bloody tower, as it was packed. But I'm cool with that. I went to I think it was the Mediaeval palace which was really cool, but again no photos allowed. I took heaps of pictures of the knight armour though..... actually lots of it was kings armour I think. They had this screen that kept changing colour behind the displays, made for some interesting pictures!
And here is one of me outside the walls of the whole compound, before I had really considered going in.
So I didn't manage to get any really stunning pictures of London bridge, or of the Tower bridge, but seriously London Bridge... what a let down! The nursery rhyme should definitely be about Tower bridge, much more interesting!
Sorry about the formatting by the way, I just can't be bothered battling with blogger any more, it takes ages, and you end up deleting all your work with an accidental badly placed backspace.
Okay I think that is my load of photos for now. I might head for a park this afternoon, I was chatting to one of my room mates last night about the parks, apparently I've managed quite a feat by not seeing any squirrels yet! Maybe I'll go and have fish and chips in a park. I need to do some shopping, and I just can't be bothered today, it's got really hot again. Not impossibly hot, but warmer than the last couple of days, which have been fairly chilly (note my jacket!). Mmm fish and chips and a book in the park. This sounds very promising
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