We hopped onto a double-decker bus and headed in the direction of St Paul’s Cathedral. We saw a few interesting things on the way. Firstly, this Twinings tea shop which must be the smallest ever!
And then a rather small road.
And this cute shop!
Then we arrived at St Paul’s Cathedral which was larger than life.
We did the audio tour.
And then I climbed the 552 stairs to the top. Mike had done it 38 years ago and didn’t want to do it again for some reason. 😉 I was amazed that I wasn’t out of breath or even feeling tired when I reached the top. Apparently walking for 8 hours or so a day has made me ridiculously fit! The view halfway up:
And from the top:
Then it was down even more stairs to the crypt, where we stopped for a drink.
From the outside you could see where I’d climbed to, just above the big dome.
We made our way across the Thames River via the Millennium Bridge.
We were making our way to somewhere special for lunch and stumbled on the Borough Market. It was very picturesque!
We saw that not all black taxi cabs in London are boring or traditional. Here’s a rather pretty one!
Then we reached our destination, The George Inn:
This is a very old pub where Charles Dickens and William Shakespeare both used to come:
We both loved this inn, it was so authentic and OLD!!! Everything in this inn had a story to tell, including the floorboards which creaked and groaned as we walked on them.
We ate lunch here and the food was excellent too!
They’ve kept this sign which advertises their stable fees:
Our next destination was on the other side of the river: the Tower of London!
We went over the Tower of London Bridge.
This was the view looking up the Thames from the bridge:
Then we arrived at the old Tower of London, where the moat dried up long ago:
This catapult is in the old moat. You can clearly see the level the water used to go to!
Inside the second wall; they sure didn’t want uninvited “guests”!
Going through the third wall:
And listening to our Yeoman Warder (aka Beefeater!) guide tell us about the tower of London. He was very amusing and lives on the premises with his family.
All the beefeaters and their families live in the Tower of London, as well as a priest next door to a doctor. The guide said if the doctor didn’t fix you, you ended up with the priest. 😉 This is the Tower Green where several people lost their heads…
We went in and saw the crown jewels, the crowns had massive jewels on them, they must be very heavy to wear!
At the other end of the scale, here’s some of what was available to tourists:
The White Tower keep on the right was built by William the Conqueror and is where the royal family lived until the 14th century. Over 200 steps to get in and out of that, just to add to my total for the day. 😉
Looking from the White Tower to the military area where the crown jewels are kept.
This is known as Traitor’s Gate. It’s where prisoners were brought in by boat from the Thames. Prisoners who walked up these steps include Anne Boleyn, Catherine Howard, Jane Grey, Thomas More and Many More!
We left just on dusk, this is looking back at the Tower of London. It was much larger than I’d expected and so very interesting!
We finished the day with a meal at a Scottish restaurant, served by a waiter in a kilt, with a South African accent. Just to be different. 🙂