So, a lot of people said that while I’m in London, I have to see The Tower of London. It wasn’t really high on my list of things to do, but I was up early and didn’t have much to do until 4pm today, so I figured “what the heck?” I banked on it taking me about 2 hours to go through.
6 hours later I was walking to the tube saying out loud “That was freakin’ awesome!” Only I didn’t use the word “freakin’.” (Yes, I stole that from Guardians of the Galaxy, but it seemed appropriate, right? It’s not like I left the Sherlock Holmes museum and yelled “Look at me! I’m Mary Poppins, y’all!” But now that I think of it, that would have been pretty hilarious).
So, the only thing I knew about the Tower of London was that the crown jewels are stored there. And the only reason I knew that was because in the 1880’s Professor Moriarty tried to steal them but was stopped by Sherlock Holmes (brilliantly reenacted by Basil Rathbone in the 1939 documentary “The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes)*. So yes, the crown jewels were there and I got to see them. They were super protective about nobody taking photos, though. In fact, this guy near me took a photo and security literally grabbed him and took him out of the room. And the tower does have torture chambers, so I am sort of scared for that guy.
Yes, it has an entire chamber of torture devices like the Rack (which pulls arms and legs apart). It also displayed a device that did the opposite (compressed the body) and a slew of other really dark devices I won’t go into (and I didn’t take photos of these either–sorry).
The entire place is a city fortress (as you can see from the pictures here). Lots of stairs to climb, lots of views, amazing history. They had all military armory displayed throughout the centuries, and a reenactment of how the Tower was used during WWI to ready soldiers for battle.
There was also a very peaceful religious side to the place, with numerous courtyards and chapels constructed in different eras (and for different religions). I think I’ve said enough about it…I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves. BUT. IT. WAS. AWESOME. If you’re ever in London, I highly recommend it. And if you have any questions about any of the pictures, just let me know. I could go on and on and on…
My blogs so far have been on major topics, so my next one will be sort of a collage of all the smaller adventures I’ve had (and will have tonight) that I haven’t even touched on yet…so stay tuned!
A brief word as well: WordPress is not loading up all the pictures I took at Tower of London, so I’m hoping to set up a separate entries with all of the pictures. These are roughly half of them.
Oh, and if I were alive in 1953, I would have totally dated Queen Elizabeth II. She was SO cute!
Jeff: August 14th, 2017
*Again, just a joke. I know Sherlock Holmes was a fictional character.
jeffinukraine2016 
Once again, I enjoyed your post. I remember when Tom and I were there back in 1975. Tom has movie film of me looking out of one of the tower windows, I believe on the third floor level. Yes, that place was awesome. Glad I was only a visitor and not some poor condemned man back in the days of Richard III.
LikeLike