Time to add the missing photos. Hope you like them.
Tuesday September 10
For our last day, we first planned to take the tour of the Tower of London. So we left our hotel for the Collier Wood Tube into London, arriving in time for a tour at 11:30. Our guide, Barney the Beefeater, was fun and funny, and we had a delightful time.
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Our Beefeater, Barney |
Did you know that you cannot be a member of the Queen's Guard unless you have been in the service for at least 22 years and have received a good conduct medal (available after 15 years), which he described as a medal you get if you have had "no detected misbehavior" (he stressed detected). Barney had been in the Marines and made sure we appreciated that.
We heard about the many beheadings that befell royalty (mostly) and the grisly details of exactly how they were beheaded (ineptly, especially the town butcher who was quite intoxicated and required eight attempts to kill his victim), and what then happened to the remains of said victims (the head to the bridge to be hoisted on a petard as a warning to others and the body unceremoniously dumped under the chapel floor).
Queen Victoria required all those bodies be dug up and identified and reburied during the 1840s.
The Crown Jewels are as fabulous-appearing as you would expect, and we spent 20-30 minutes walking through the exhibit.
The light made for really nice photos.
Tower Bridge Shot from inside the Tower of London Grounds |
Then we took a Tube trip to Notting Hill for shopping, which is probably much more interesting on weekends. We found a satisfactory place for lunch (and dessert, again), however, and we had a sit-down for awhile. We then went to Covent Garden where our shopping was much more successful.
The day was about over, so we backtracked to Collier Wood and our hotel, filled up the car with diesel, and got ready for the trip home tomorrow morning.
We are ready.
Thank you for following our journey.
10,628 steps today, 5 miles. In all, close to 70 miles of walking.