It is fascinating to think the original buildings were built by William the Conqueror in the 1070s. There is so much history to recount in this spot. We bought family audio tours, which were narrated by the ravens of the Tower. Legend has it that if the six ravens ever leave the site, the Tower and the Kingdom will fall. They keep seven ravens on location, just in case. Jack was able to meet a raven buddy. You can see it over his left shoulder, perched on a railing. He was excited to say the least.
One of the first stops we encountered on the tour was a "Torture at the Tower" exhibit. There was a replica of "The Rack" and a replica of "The Scavenger's Daughter", which was the complete opposite of the rack and apparently extremely excruciating.
We viewed medieval armor, and the kids were able to try on a replica of a helmet from medieval times. It was quite heavy.
I didn't try it on, because I knew that my extra large head probably wouldn't fit in the helmet. I used the excuse of not wanting to get medieval head lice, though.
We got in the queue to see the Crown Jewels, and what a queue it was! Here is a picture of part of the line for perspective, with a close up of Dan and Hadley in the middle of the line.
Luckily, you stand on a moving sidewalk to actually view the Crown Jewels, so the line moves pretty quickly once you get inside the building. It was amazing to see all of the crowns, scepters, Coronation attire and accessories. The most interesting piece, in my opinion, was the Grand Punch Bowl, whose original purpose was to hold 144 bottles of wine. It weighs over 500 pounds. The thing was enormous! You couldn't take pictures of the Crown Jewels, so you will have to Google it to see a pic.
After the Crown Jewels, we moved to the beheading section, as I like to call it. We learned lots of gruesome tales about the beheading of Anne Boleyn, which the kids loved. Here are the kids with the Execution Memorial, which is close to the site of the beheadings. And, yes, the memorial does include a glass replica of a pillow. Go figure...
The Bloody Tower tour followed. It was so named because of the murder of the two young sons of King Edward IV by their uncle so that he could be declared King Richard III. Legend has it that the murders occurred in the Bloody Tower. Their bones were found years later in the White Tower. Really fascinating stuff. After touring the Tower of London, you see where George R.R. Martin gets a lot of his Game of Thrones plot lines. In actuality, Sir Walter Raleigh lived in the Bloody Tower for many years as a prisoner. He was granted quite plush living quarters for the time, was allowed to move his family in with him and was allowed to visit the Gardens freely. As he is an important figure in NC history, we took a picture of the kids in the room that was his study. It was set up to replicate his living quarters at the time.
We finished our tour with the White Tower, which was used as an armory. It displays many suits of armor. Here is Jack with a suit of armor of Henry VIII. Notice the rather large codpiece to protect his "Crown Jewels". It was quite comical to see in person.
Upon leaving the Tower of London, we grabbed a late lunch at Wagamama (yay! -- See my Amsterdam posts about one of my favorite restaurants of all time.) Jack actually ate carrots, cucumbers and corn. There must be something about the London air.
We made a mad dash to the Tower Bridge in order to get there before it closed. Here are the kids in front of the bridge in the "closed" position. Jack was a little afraid about walking across it, because he kept worrying it was going to fall down, as in the song.
We made it to the top to walk across the upper walkways, which you can see above Sidney's head. They are about 138 feet above the River Thames. There are glass portions of the floor. Here are the children laying on the glass portions with cars driving directly beneath them.
Here is a view of St. Paul's cathedral in the distance from the top of the bridge.
We also viewed the boiler rooms, which displayed the gigantic mechanisms formerly used to raise and lower the bridge. We timed things so that we were able to see the bridge raise to let a boat pass. It was really neat to see.
We decided to go to Hard Rock Cafe for dinner, since the original location is right around the corner from our hotel.
Dan and I love to introduce the kids to all types of music, so we enjoy looking at all of the memorabilia displayed at Hard Rock Cafe. After dinner, we were able to luck into a private tour of The Vault (it didn't hurt to ask), which is a private collection of their most valuable memorabilia, available for viewing by special tour only. It is kept in a former bank vault, which was used at a prior time to house Princess Diana's wedding dress for safekeeping before her wedding to Prince Charles. I am going to geek out for a bit with some pictures, so you can skip this part if you aren't into music memorabilia.
A rare Flying V guitar owned by Jimi Hendrix
A Gene Simmons (of Kiss) guitar and leather chaps
A Jimmy Page guitar (Led Zeppelin), as signed by Page and Robert Plant
John Lennon's coat and glasses as well as "Imagine" hand-edited by Lennon
And...a bustier worn by Madonna
There were lots of additional cool pieces, but I thought that was enough to post. Jack's favorite was a coat worn by Elvis Presley.
On the way home, we discovered that the Playboy Club of London was located half a block from our hotel. I didn't even know these still existed. Jack and Dan wanted to go in, but Dan left his "key" at home. Oh, well. Maybe next time...
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