View of the Tower Bridge

Phone Booth at the Tower

Fuzzy Hat guarding the entrance to Crown Jewels

Canon at Tower of London

Torture Tower

Lady Beefeater & Len

The Famous Tower of London Raven

White Tower at the Tower of London

Eddie and Andy 

Our guide Eddie- Bad Hair day

A Day for Knights

Day Three

Another early morning and off to the Tower of London.  Today was the first and only day of rain.  We arrived at the Tower of London, just in time for the skies to open up and pour. Our guides had no mercy when it came to group photo ops. Rain or shine it was time for a photo. I also felt that no mercy should be shown when an opportunity to catch our guide when a bad hair day presented itself. We toured the grounds of the tower with Stephen and again got a detailed history lesson on the Tower and it famous inhabitants and visitors. During our history lesson I learned about the tale of the raven.  The story goes that should the ravens that live at the Tower leave, the Tower of London will fall and so will the British Monarchy.  Keeping that in mind I just took a few shots of the raven, but asked them not follow me home.

Then we were off to see the Crown Jewels.  We saw the Greater Star of India approx 600 karats, The Imperial Crown of India (the crown the Queen uses when traveling outside the UK) the coronation scepters, to name a few.  The area where the jewels are kept has more security than Fort Knox. The group had a choice of taking the bus back to the hotel or staying at the Tower.  Being that there was so much to see at the tower we stayed and took a taxi back to the hotel at the end of the day.  You can easily spend an entire day at the Tower of London and not see everything that there is to see. The weather quickly improved while we enjoyed the rest of the day at the Tower.

We met our friends Tom and Christy for dinner and went to a local restaurant  Wolfe’s -which was recommended by our guide Eddie.  According to Eddie it was a few blocks and a 5 minutes walk.  We learned the Eddie’s idea of a short walk and ours did differ. Eddie is young and has long legs; I am not young and have short legs, so I guess that is where the difference lies. The food was great and we spent most of our evening together laughing until we cried. 

It was another wonderful day of adventure in London.  Tomorrow is a Tale of Two Cities and our farewell to the UK.  Luggage pick up is at 7:15 am.  Off to bed with hopes of finding a small crown jewel under my pillow.