Today was the first day I planned; years ago Meredith decided I needed to plan half the vacation days rather than letting her plan them all and then making tons of suggestions when we got to the country. That is fair, but it is more pressure when others are involved. I played it really safe today – we just went to the Tower of London.

In my mind, the Tower is the one must-see sight in London. You have a cool castle, a thousand years of history, and the super-cool Tower Bridge in the background of many pictures. There are the crown jewels, and Beefeater guides in costumes, and semi-tame ravens wandering around. There is prisoner graffiti that is four hundred years old and escape stories and Isaac Newton as the head of the English Mint at the Tower. It is an amazing place.

We showed up when it opened at 9:00, having purchased tickets the night before. We stayed until almost 3:00, so it seems as if the others enjoyed it. We started with seeing the crown jewels, since that can get long lines. We waltzed right in to them and got to pass them (on moving walkways) three times. I had forgotten how impressive they are – covered in diamonds and other valuable stones, they do convey a certain awe, even to this skeptical American.

From there, we took a forty-five-minute tour from a Beefeater (warder) – one of the people who served in the military for twenty-five years or more and then applied for the position. Our guide was a funny man who managed to be cranky-seeming while still being polite. My favorite line was when he told Americans “to go study your history. That won’t take long.” He was great. He filled us in on the development of the Tower, from the original White Tower from around 1100 to its use as a royal residence and a prison and a barracks (not all at the same time).

We then saw the rest of the Tower (more or less) over the next several hours. There are exhibits on animals kept at the Tower (they rarely fared well), the armor and weapons of the keep, the Royal Mint (which was at the Tower until 1811), retired crowns and jewels, and more. We finished our visit to the Tower by crossing over the famous Tower Bridge, going out along it and coming back over.

At that point, Shelby headed off on her own to explore the St. Paul’s Cathedral area, to see the Museum of London (mixed reviews), and to see the British Library (positive reviews). The other four of us returned to the apartment. I took a nap, and Brianna rested in her bedroom, and Meredith and Neuf went up to Covent Garden for awhile before we all headed out to St. Paul’s at 5:30.

We grabbed a quick supper across from the cathedral, and then we met up with a local guide, Andrew, who was to take us on a two-hour walk of the original City of London (about one square mile), with a focus on Shakespeare and Dickens. The City itself is mostly banks, and so while 350,000 people work there, only about 7,000 live in the district, which makes it very quiet at night. Andrew walked us around, showing us places that Dickens describes in his stories, and pointing out where Shakespeare lived when he came to London, as well as a few memorials to Shakespeare. It was a relaxing way to see the city, and along the way, we saw a few houses and churches that date from Shakespeare’s time or earlier, along with some memorials to the religious upheaval of the time in which Shakespeare lived. Andrew even suggested that Macbeth might be inspired by the Catholic/Protestant issues of the day, with a Scottish king (James) on the throne and with other hints (like the castle porter’s speech about a farmer and equivocator being found in hell – both could be a reference to a well-known Jesuit priest executed around 1606). I loved the tour, and the others were still speaking to me at the end, so that seemed positive.

We walked down the hill from St. Paul’s to get the magnificent view of the church lit up at night, and then grabbed the Tube back to the apartment from near the river. After a day spent in the 1100s, the 1600s, and the 1800s, it was nice to ride back home.