Travelogue, Part the Second: Off With Their Heads!

We arose bright and early on Sunday morning and headed down to breakfast. English breakfast is a marvelous thing. Sausages, roasted potatoes, fresh fruits, croissants, pastries toast, tea...heaven! I mean, unless you're on the Atkins diet or something. The English diet seems to consist largely of fatty meats, starchy vegetables, bread, and ale. And given all that, although the people I saw were generally a bit fleshier than the emaciated ideal in America, the startling thing was the lack of people of very large girth. And if I saw them, they were generally vacationing Americans.

After feasting on breakfast starches, we met our friend Dr. Death and took the Tube to the Tower of London.
Between the Tube stop and the Tower, we walked past the remnants of an old Roman wall. I touched it. It didn't fall down. There was also, in front of it, a statue of Festivus or some other Roman Person. The group behind us felt inclined to put a pink feather boa around his neck. He didn't seem to mind.
We walked on a bit to the Tower, which was totally fantastic. The part just to the right of center, with the spires, is the White Tower. The spires, if you look closely, are topped by golden weathervanes, with crowns on the top. I want one of those for my house.

We joined up with a tour, led by one of the Yeoman Warders (Beefeaters), named Simon, who is not pictured here, but instead, I'm providing a generic picture for you, the home viewer. Simon was witty and dramatic and everything you could want in a tour guide. These fellows are privileged enough to actually live on the Tower grounds with their families. How cool a retirement would that be? Simon was with us until we reached the chapel, but since there were actually services going on at the time, we couldn't go in. So we kept on exploring on our own.

One of the things we went to see was the actual crown jewels. A note to the fellas, though: when you give your girlfriend a ring the day before, it may not be the best idea to take her to see things encrusted with 27,000 diamonds less than 24 hours later. Just saying, is all.

The neatest part here, I thought, was that when you're wandering through the museum, before you get to the jewels, they show you films of Elizabeth's coronation, and you get to see the jewels in action, so to speak. It brought home the idea that although it might be nice to be a queen, there is no hairdo in the world that looks fabulous under a crown. Imagine the hat-head!

Speaking of hat-head, this was also our first encounter with palace guards...since the Tower is still technically a palace, there are guards on duty at all times. You may notice the not-at-all-ceremonial automatic weapon he's carrying.

We had a snack, walked around a bit more, up windy staircases, down windy staircases, the Monty Python jokes flying fast and furious. We finally went inside the chapel, where I was fascinated with the giant pipe organ (insert joke here) and the proximity to Famous Dead People.

Before leaving the Tower, I must say a word about the ravens. Historically, it seems, there have always been ravens at the Tower. Common sense tells us that this is probably because there often seemed to be eyeballs available to peck, in bodyless heads staked along the wall, but legend says that if the ravens ever leave the tower, the monarchy will fall. So there are always at least six ravens at the Tower. They don't fly, as their wings are clipped (a superstitious lot, the English, but not impractical), but they hop like nobody's business. And they are seriously hellaciously HUGE.

We walked from the Tower to the Tower Bridge, which is possibly the most recognizable symbol of London. It's quite a major feat of engineering and stuff, considering it's about 100 years old, and it's still in operation. That bit at the top is a walkway between the towers. We took the lift up and walked around, which provided a breathtaking view of the city. This is the Thames, facing westward from the center of the Tower Bridge walkway. You can see the dome of St. Paul's on the far right, and the battleship Something-or-Other in the middle. We were supposed to take the lift back down, to see the engine room for the drawbridge, but when we got there, the lift had just died, so we had to walk back down the steps. This left us with only enough energy to walk to the Tube station and back to the hotel, where we parted ways with Dr. Death for the moment and flopped down for a nap before dinner.

Dinner was with Dr. Death again, at a little Italian place, where we all had something akin to veal cordon bleu, and finished with tasty desserts. We agreed to meet up again later in the week, and parted company with the good doctor. I think I fell asleep before I got to the hotel room.

Next: Greenwich Mean and The Time