London Calling...

So... I feel like London is a lot like Washington, DC.  It's a day trip for us. 1 hour train ride, underground (or metro as I call it) is easy to figure out, not a lot of scammers all in my face (unlike Paris) and lots of sites to see.  For those of you considering visiting here is the $$ scoop.  It's 25 pounds for an all day travel card from our Train station in Ely and all the zones in London for the Underground.  It's a pretty good deal to get there. The catch is that pretty much all the sites are way over priced but totally worth it if your interested in history.

That big Cathedral in the background is St. Paul's Cathedral.  During the WWII bombing of London (we know it as the Blitz) this Cathedral was the only building left standing. It was a symbol that England would not succumb to Hitler. It's an amazing structure!  Designed by Christopher Wren after the Great Fire of 1666. He actually designed a ton of other churches around this one but St. Paul's is the greatest of all (although the one they say the tiered wedding cake is designed after is a close second for me - below).

Tiered wedding cake design

Any way, there are some Free sites in London.  The National Gallery and the National Portrait Gallery are free. There are tons of walks and parks and squares to hang out in.  One place that was definitely worth the money was the Tower of London! It was 20 pounds per person but the amount of history in that place is just remarkable. So much older than anything we have in the states.

Tower of London

And it turns out that the Tower of London isn't a huge tower (like I always thought) after all. It's a fort!  Originally built by William the Conqueror in 1077ish.  It's a residence to the Queen, home to the crown jewels, where you can see the Beefeaters (guards), and where many people were imprisoned and some very famous people lost their lives. In the little church inside you can see the headless graves of a couple of Henry VIII's wives. Most famous is Anne Boleyn his 2nd wife whom encouraged his split with the Roman Catholic church. Most tragic was Lady Jane Grey, who was manipulated into claiming the crown for nine days during the scramble for power after Henry's death.  And most recent prisoner was Nazi Rudolf Hess, when in 1941he parachuted into England. He was captured and held in the Tower and was sentenced to war crimes. There are a bunch of other really juicy stories that came out of this place and it took us 3 hours to sift through all the English drama. I highly recommend going there and taking it all in!

Fun fact - Beefeaters aka the guards are really funny! Dry British funny. But they think the term Beefeater came from a term that people used to refer to them as since they were paid in beef which made them fatter than the rest of the Londoners. 

Tower Bridge - not London Bridge!

Mike with Big Ben

Mike with Parliament 

We also went to the Churchhill War Rooms. An underground bunker set up in WWII to protect against the bombings. That was really neat too! I highly recommend it.  So far we've been to London twice and seen tons of stuff but we still have yet to see the real Rosetta stone.  So the next time we go there we are making a point to go to the British Museum to see that. In the meantime... our travels continue...