Today was the day that held the greatest anticipation for us in our tour of London. We had decided to visit the Tower of London and the British Museum, both some of the most historic and famous sites in London. Both also take several hours, so we knew we were in for a long day.
Of course, the day couldn’t start without going back to Emirates Stadium (home of Arsenal Football Club, for the uninformed). Yes, we’d already been there once. No, we hadn’t done all the sightseeing we wanted, or bought everything we planned.
So we caught the tube for the short ride to the stadium, and took a quick walking tour of the exterior of the stadium. After picking up a few more souvenirs, and getting a couple (dozen) pictures, we got back on the tube to head for central London.
Once there, we walked around the tower, saw some of the medieval weaponry set up in the walls, and headed in to the castle itself.
For some of you who might not be aware, the Tower of London isn’t really a tower at all. It’s a very large castle. Not one of those namby-pamby fantasy ones like at Neuschwanstein either. This was a proper Medieval castle, with dungeons, dual walls, portcullises, crenellations, and a moat. Admittedly, the moat wasn’t as impressive as it might have been, having been filled in part way and turned into a sunken grassy lawn, but the castle was still a serious defensive fortress.
Another indication that the Tower of London was a real castle, and not a mere palace, was that the castle is an entire complex, housing what was once a bustling village of several thousand people within its walls. In fact, the governor still lives there (complete with machine-gun equipped guards), as do many of the Yeoman of the Queen’s royal guard.
So, we headed into the castle. Directly upon entering the castle, we ran headlong into a Yeoman, who was preparing to start a guided tour of the castle. He immediately began shouting in his best parade-ground voice to gather around him, and feeling that disagreeing with him might be a bad idea, we did so.
The Yeoman proceeded to take us on one of the best tours I’ve ever been a part of. To become a Yeoman, you must have served for 22 years in the military of England, received a number of commendations and service medals (good conduct, etc.), and have achieved a certain rank (at least that of Sergeant Major). Apparently the job also requires good acting ability, as our Yeoman was a very talented and entertaining guide. He told us much of the history of the tower itself, how the moat had once been actually filled with water that was flushed by the Thames every day (bad idea; when tide is low, the moat merely becomes a muddy path), and how they fixed this by hiring an expensive Dutch consultant who said, “dig it deeper”. He also told us how this was an even worse idea, because now the river couldn’t completely flush the moat, and it was used by all 2,500 people as a sewer, as well as the dumping grounds for the local butchers. It was also apparently used as a play-pool for a pair of polar bears, because the king couldn’t figure out what to do with the animals after receiving them as a gift from another monarch. The bears didn’t last too long there (cholera), and neither did the deep moat, by English standards (a mere 500 years). It was filled in and turned into the grassy lawn mentioned earlier.
The guide also told us about the Tower’s history as a prison and execution area, which was not the Tower’s original purpose. Apparently the Tower wasn’t actually that great of a prison; 1 in 40 prisoners escaped from it. The first prisoner, in fact, escaped. He was an old bishop, who managed to get the guards drunk and use the ropes binding the wine casks to climb down the outside of the wall. We learned that a Scottish guy did actually enter the Tower through Traitors Gate (a water entrance, by the way), but spent less than a half hour there before being taken out to be executed at the commoner’s execution grounds elsewhere in London (insert several comments about the uncivilized nature of Scots; our guide was an Englishman through and through).
After the tour we decided to see the Crown Jewels. The jewels were lined up in cases and along side it people stood on a moving walkway to see them. Beside the walkway were descriptions of every jewel on display. Of course, most people just hop on the walkway and get a glimpse of the gems on their way by. I had to read every description for each display before hopping on. As I explained to Lib, “It has a bunch of cool stuff about the coronation ceremony and the significance of all the items. Otherwise they’re just pretty jewels.” This didn’t seem to move Lib much, however. Apparently she did just want to see the pretty jewels. After the jewels we saw all of the golden plates owned by royalty, not the most interesting stuff.
The last thing we saw before leaving the Tower of London was the Royal armory museum in the White Tower (the big famous building). This tower had originally been the royal quarters, and was where some of the original prisoners were held. Now it held a display of many of the kings’ armor, weapons, royal artillery, and statues of various kings and their horses. It also held a massive display on King Henry VIII (put together by the History Channel for some anniversary this year). This display was very flashy, and while it drew your eye, it was rather hard to read every single descriptor as is my normal practice, due to the lights in displays flashing on and off and then strobing brilliantly at you. The scrolling video displays, showing armor spinning in 3-D with statistics scrolling by like something from a Bond movie, also looked neat, but seemed out of place in this Medieval setting. Once again, it also made it hard to actually learn about the piece of armor, because you had to sit through the entire video to get the full story. The biggest problem with the whole display, of course, was that King Henry VIII wasn’t a particularly nice fellow, and it seemed a little out of place to have 3 entire levels of the building dedicated to him, with banners saying things like “Warrior, Sportsman, Monarch” everywhere. As our guide said, there were a couple of other things you could append to that list.
The most interesting thing we saw in the Henry VIII exhibit was a display on his armor and how it changed over his life. Apparently, Henry was a very avid sportsman, taking part in both Jousting and Foot combat games. As such he had many suits of armor made for him over the years. His first suit, at age 24, was that of a powerfully built, tall man. He was 6’1”, with broad shoulders and a slim waist. Over the years, the waist expanded in size, while the height slowly contracted. By the time he was 54, his armor looked like northing more than a metal beach ball with a few odd spiky bits. One thing that was consistent across all the suits, though, was the codpiece. Our guide had mentioned this disturbing part of the armor as well, calling it “one of the first experiments with psychological warfare.”
I thought it best to leave this historical part of this entry to Steven and take over from here. Also, the following incidents are still a point of agitation and I don’t want him to “edit history”. After our wonderful time exploring the Tower, Steven was a happy, happy traveler having read most display inscriptions and having soaked up all the tour guide had to offer. He was giddy with excitement and relished explaining in more detail things not covered in the tour. The next part of the story needs some explanation before I can continue. There were three things Steven wished to accomplish while in London: 1. Buy a raincoat 2. Eat at a proper hole-in-the-wall fish and chip shop 3. Purchase a pair of Wellies (rain boots) for me. Having now been in London for several days it was a severe disappointment that Steven had not been caught in a torrential downpour nor had he eaten any fish and chips. But low and behold directly outside of the Tower the greasy aroma of a true fish and chips shop hit our dear Steven. I had not thought I could have seen him more elated. He rushed over to the shop and bought two orders of fish and chips. After dousing our fish in the famous brown sauce and burying the chips in a mound of ketchup I found a perfect bench under a tree to alleviate our now roaring stomachs.
We each had a bite of fish and one chip before a pigeon decided to release it’s contents on both of our lunches and down Steven’s shirt. It put a bit of a dent in Steven’s perfect day and it probably didn’t help that I could hardly contain my giggles at the unfortunate events. The situation didn’t improve, no matter how hard I tried to explain that the giggles came out of disbelief. Steven was able to change and had resolved to go back for more fish and chips but I couldn’t get the sight of a pile of steaming pigeon-poo on the chips out of mind to be able to stomach the dish at that time. It figured that just when Steven had let off a bit of steam we passed a large poster, surrounded by people of the hippie persuasion, appealing to us to “help the birds”. We wandered around not in the best of spirits until we stumbled into the Borough Street Market. It, like our Cambridge B&B, was a mini oasis in a troubling day. The market was full of excellent smelly cheeses, breads, and sweets which instantly grasped Steven’s attention. We settled on a cheddar cheese, a loaf of crusty bread, chocolate cheesecake and chocolate mousse cake. We ate our meal in a courtyard outside of an old church. Our good moods had returned and with Steven’s poopy shirt stuffed on the side of my backpack we headed to Stamford Bridge, home of the Chelsea football club. Like traitors we walked into the official stadium shop with our Arsenal souvenirs tucked away in the backpack. Steven decided it was necessary to buy a jersey so he would have a shirt to wear. (Since the pigeon incident he had been wearing a thin running top). Since realizing that, given time, I would probably be converted to being a Chelsea fan by way of Steven’s fanatical explanations of the Chelsea team during the season, I too purchased a jersey. We took the tube back to central London and decided that while in London it would be necessary to see the new Harry Potter movie. On our way to the theatre we walked passed Trafalgar Square. In the square on the fourth plinth as a part of modern art an artist has decided to put a different person doing their occupation on the plinth every hour. This hour happened to be a photographer who had set a rope circle down below for people to step in to get their picture taken. Most did the typical stand and cheesy smile routine. Steven and I decided that after a rough experience with modern art two days before we would make the most of this experience. So we walked in the rope circle and did a dramatic movie star style smooch to the cheer of the crowds around us. We left our first public art performance and headed to the movie theatre. It was the most wonderful movie theatre imaginable. The screen was huge and had an actual curtain. We sat on the top level and had great seats. Two and half hours later we decided that although the movie wasn’t great it was a once in a lifetime experience. Beyond tired we headed to the subway to get to the B&B. It was packed full but we squeezed our way through. Noticing a rare empty door on the train I grabbed Steven’s arm and thought I was very clever having found a door that no one else was going through. Well the joke was on me as my shoes squished and went sliding through what had once been the contents of one’s stomach. Now I could empathize with Steven’s morning experience. This put me in a slightly grumpy (slightly???) mood the rest of the way. We made it back and snuck into the house so as not to wake anyone.

Signing off,
Stinky Shirt Steven and Libby the First

Travel question of the day: Which is worse getting you and your food pooed on by a pigeon or getting vomit on your shoes?