sayhello
Have Camera, Will Travel
- Joined
- Oct 28, 2006
Day 3 - More London! (St. Paul's Cathedral, the Tower of London)
OK, I'm going to apologize again. I cannot believe how much time I let slip by between updates! My one and only Resolution for 2012 is to get the rest of this Trip Report posted as quickly as possible!
Our 3rd day started early, with the buffet breakfast at the Hotel, followed by a brief motorcoach trip to St. Paul's Cathedral. We did not go inside St. Paul's (I suppose it's a timing thing, but I really wish they did go in). But we walked around the outside while our step-on Guide Steven explained to us the history of St. Paul's.
We had yet another gorgeous morning, and took tons of photos, while listening to Steven explain about St. Paul's, including how it survived the bombing of the Blitz, while buildings right next door were pretty much destroyed.
You can see the more "modern" building behind this tower, which was all that was left of this building right next to St. Paul's after the Blitz.
If it looks familiar, apparently St. Paul's in a similar style to the US Capitol building, but with different stone and on a different scale.
Impressive!
I'm not sure why this Call Box was black. I seem to remember that Adam told me, but I don't recall his answer. Bad Sayhello!!!
It was just such a beautiful day, and an impressive building, we kept taking pictures as we walked along & saw a new perspective! I'd thought it lovely when I was there during my pre-days in gloomy weather, but it was even more spectacular with blue skies & sunshine!
A memorial erected across the street from St. Paul's.
We then made our way to the Millenium Bridge. Some folks, again, were kind of hesitant to go out on this unusual bridge, but everyone went, and it seemed everyone was ultimately OK with it. We got some great pictures taken, then headed back to our motorcoach.
Gotta love Pub names!
Our next stop was the Tower of London!
They had a lot of these wire animal sculptures around the Tower, to represent the animals that used to be kept there.
An interesting juxtaposition of the Old and the New.
Tower Bridge!
Traitors' Gate. How some people entered the Tower. Not the way you wanted to get there!
Continued in next post.
OK, I'm going to apologize again. I cannot believe how much time I let slip by between updates! My one and only Resolution for 2012 is to get the rest of this Trip Report posted as quickly as possible!
Our 3rd day started early, with the buffet breakfast at the Hotel, followed by a brief motorcoach trip to St. Paul's Cathedral. We did not go inside St. Paul's (I suppose it's a timing thing, but I really wish they did go in). But we walked around the outside while our step-on Guide Steven explained to us the history of St. Paul's.
We had yet another gorgeous morning, and took tons of photos, while listening to Steven explain about St. Paul's, including how it survived the bombing of the Blitz, while buildings right next door were pretty much destroyed.
You can see the more "modern" building behind this tower, which was all that was left of this building right next to St. Paul's after the Blitz.
If it looks familiar, apparently St. Paul's in a similar style to the US Capitol building, but with different stone and on a different scale.
Impressive!
I'm not sure why this Call Box was black. I seem to remember that Adam told me, but I don't recall his answer. Bad Sayhello!!!
It was just such a beautiful day, and an impressive building, we kept taking pictures as we walked along & saw a new perspective! I'd thought it lovely when I was there during my pre-days in gloomy weather, but it was even more spectacular with blue skies & sunshine!
A memorial erected across the street from St. Paul's.
We then made our way to the Millenium Bridge. Some folks, again, were kind of hesitant to go out on this unusual bridge, but everyone went, and it seemed everyone was ultimately OK with it. We got some great pictures taken, then headed back to our motorcoach.
Gotta love Pub names!
Our next stop was the Tower of London!
They had a lot of these wire animal sculptures around the Tower, to represent the animals that used to be kept there.
An interesting juxtaposition of the Old and the New.
Tower Bridge!
Traitors' Gate. How some people entered the Tower. Not the way you wanted to get there!
Continued in next post.
Tickets are free, but you must request them pretty far in advance, as only a limited number of people are allowed in each night.
Instead of being taken to the Tower of London, they had dropped us off near Tower Bridge, about as far away from the Tower as we could be, and still be by the Bridge and on this side of the Thames. After several false starts, we realized what we needed to do was take the stairs up to the Bridge, dodge traffic to run across the lanes of the Bridge, follow it all the way down to the end of the Bridge, and then somehow get over to the Tower. As we got closer, it became painfully obvious that we were going to have to walk practically the full perimeter of the Tower to get to the entrance we needed to get to. Our "very early" arrival turned into "The chances of us making it there are slim to none". But we'd been waiting for this, and anticipating it for so long; I don't think any of us were willing to give up at that point without giving it the old college try.
I'm glad you enjoyed them. I would definitely check out the Ceremony of the Keys. I ordered my tickets in May for a September date, so that's only 4 months. Now July is probably more popular than September, so I wouldn't wait too long.
I love that area of London. We've walked from Westminster to the Millenium Bridge. The Globe Theatre is right there too. Walking along the embankment is a nice way to spend a morning. <sigh> I must return soon.
