Our Family Blog: The Grand Tour (Day 8): London

Today was another day around the center of London. We started off with some croissants from our favorite store "Pret a Manger" then caught a train down to "the City", or the original historic center of London and is where the financial center and big businesses are located. We got off the train and walked down "The Strand" (the street name) to St. Paul's Cathedral. It's an impressive site as you see it, even from a couple of blocks away. It's odd to see a domed building and think "church" since most of our domed buildings are government buildings. But this was a trend-setter back in its day and inspired copying. It was designed by Christopher Wren in the 1600's after the great fire of London that destroyed most of "the City". Even today, there are monuments to the fire--400 years later!

The West facade of the Cathedral; it includes two towers as well as the dome.

Below: Queen Victoria statue, commemorating the celebration of her diamond jubilee at St. Paul's Cathedral. Queen Elizabeth had a service here a few weeks ago to celebrate her diamond jubilee...the only two monarchs to have served that long. Also, Princess Diana's wedding was held here.

Of course, pictures were forbidden, but what is a person to do if their camera just happens to be at their waist, pointed up and their finger happens to touch the shutter release? I like this view because it really shows the gold mosaics on the ceilings. A very stunning cathedral, and one of my favorites. I think part of the reason I like it so much is because it is bright and airy. Some of the medieval cathedrals, while pretty cool in their own right, seem kind of dark and dreary....not my style of worship! (But I think our church could learn a bit about dressing up our chapels!)

After walking through the main floor of the cathedral, we climbed the staircase (of course, a spiral one!) to the Whispering Gallery, which is just below the windows under the dome. Legend has it that a person standing on one side can whisper something to a person on the other side and the sound travels. Sounds good in theory, but it didn't work so well for us. We kind of felt foolish trying to "whisper" louder and louder to see if we could get it to work, and then finally gave up.

The Whispering Gallery

Becky sat on the ledge of the Whispering Gallery and waited while I climbed the rest of the way to the Stone Gallery (midway up the dome) and Golden Gallery (just under the cupola at the top).

Below: The view from the Stone Gallery to the West. You can see the steeple of St. Bride's Church....legend has it that a nearby baker copied the steeple motif to create the traditional wedding cake design.

View of the south tower from the Stone Gallery (and Westminster in the background with the London Eye).

After climbing up the stairs (very narrow in some spots...my shoulders brushed on both sides in some narrow passages), there was a small 12" window at the top of the dome before you go out onto the outside gallery. This is the view from about 10 stories up, suspended in the dome over the floor below. (There was an orchestra podium set up for some kind of concert and that is the big black rectangle.) Unfortunately, there was a big line of people to look down, and my one photo turned out a bit blurry.

View from the top in the Golden Gallery and just under the cupola on the dome.

Below: View to the east and to Olympic Park. Just to the right of the large vertical building on the left, and just below the horizon, you can see a wide, white structure. That's the Olympic Stadium. Just on the right side of that, you can barely see The Orbit....the viewing platform/structure in Olympic Park.

View from the Golden Gallery....it makes me sad to see the graffiti on all of the big monuments in Europe. We saw that everywhere.

View from the bottom looking up to the Cupola top

After coming down from the dome, we went down into the crypt below the main level. There were a lot of tombs there, including Lord Nelson (Battle of Trafalgar) and my favorite, Christopher Wren (the architect of the cathedral). He didn't want a big headstone on his tomb, so his son put this plaque:

"Reader, if you seek his monument, look around you."

From St. Paul's Cathedral, we walked a few blocks and took the underground to Westminster and went to Westminster Abbey. It's a beautiful building...but its dark inside and has a different feel than St. Paul's. But I love the decoration and carvings on the outside.

Detail of the carvings over the West Door.

As a Gothic cathedral goes, it's one of the best, but like I said earlier, its not my favorite style of cathedral. However, I did enjoy seeing the history here...there are tombs of some very important people here....A huge number of them royal/monarchs of England (Edward the Confessor who died in 1066, Edward I (Longshanks) who died in 1307, Henry V, Henry VII, Queen Elizabeth I, Queen Mary (Bloody Mary), Mary Queen of Scots) but also some important secular people: Charles Dickens, George Frederick Handel [one of my favorite people], and Charles Dickens). It was almost impossible to fathom the depth of history that is included in the building.

From Westminster Abbey, we got back on the underground and took the train a few stops to Waterloo Station, where we caught a train to Hampton Court. We picked up some pasties in the train station, and ate them on the 25 min train ride. It was a relaxing break from all of the walking we had been doing.

Our afternoon at Hampton Court Palace was one of my favorite times of the trip. The day was partly cloudy and turned overcast, so it wasn't too hot, and the history of Hampton Court was fascinating to me. Hampton Court Palace was originally owned and built by Cardinal Wolsey, advisor to Henry VIII. But when Wolsey failed to get the Pope to approve Henry VIII's divorce, he fell out of favor, and Wolsey "gifted" the palace to Henry VIII to try to keep him happy. The palace became Henry's preferred palace and most of his wives lived here with him. It was also the site of the conference for the Hampton Court Conference, which led King James to commission the translation of the Bible.

The front gate to the grounds

The main gate into the palace

I love the decorative brick work on the chimneys

The Great Hall.

My most favorite room in all of the royal palaces we've visited!

Below: Along the bottom of each wall are the "Abraham Tapestries" (because they depict the story of Abraham) and were commissioned by Henry VIII to celebrate the birth of his son (he viewed himself similar to Abraham in waiting for the birth of a son). They are woven with silver and gold threads and are considered the 2nd most valuable item in the Royal Collection (after the crown jewels).

Where the King and Queen would sit to watch the festivities

The Kings' Watching Hall adjacent to the Great Hall

Costumed interpreter....they made it feel too Disneyland-ish for me. I preferred just imagining what it must have been liked. Becky liked their costumes.

Anne Boleyn costumed interpreter.

Henry VIII costumed interpreter

The Fountain Court with the later addition to the palace by Christopher Wren for William & Mary

Trimmed yews in the gardens

Baroque Eastern facade that was a later addition

Gardens of Hampton Court Palace

The Orangerie on the south side of Hampton Court Palace (Orange and citrus trees grown in pots that could be brought inside for the winter)

Gardens at Hampton Court Palace

The Thames River Dock to Hampton Court. This was the primary means of access from Central London

Rebecca in the Tudor Kitchens slaving away and churning some butter

A post-Copernican astronomical clock on the Boleyn Gate (named for Anne Boleyn). It tells time of day, phase of the moon, quarter of the year, the date, the sun and star sign, and high water at London Bridge (so visitors would know when to travel to avoid the rapids at London Bridge).

We had a delightful afternoon walking through the palace and the grounds and was, for me, one of the most memorable of our tour. As we walked back across the Thames to the train station, we saw the train pulling away, so we had to wait 30 min for the next train back to London and spent the time sipping on expensive bottled water from the train store shop.

When we got back to London, we took the underground back to our hotel and walked across the street to the British Library. They have an exhibit there that has many important documents from the Library's collection on display. Normally, a copy of the Magna Carta is on display, but unfortunately, it was "on rest" from display, and they had a document signed by all of the political leaders of the day affirming their support of the Magna Carta. Other documents on display included original writings of William Shakespeare's plays, original Charles Dickens manuscripts, Jane Austen manuscripts, an original copy of Handel's Messiah (The Trumpet Shall Sound was being shown), illuminated manuscripts from the middle ages, Wycliff's Bible, Tyndale's Bible, Codex Synaticus (from 300 AD) and Leonardo Da Vinci's notebooks. An amazing collection of documents that was almost overwhelming and impossible to comprehend!

We went back to the hotel for an hour or so and rested before leaving for the Tower of London again. I had read a year prior about The Ceremony of the Keys, a ceremony to lock up the Tower that has been going on for over 700 years non-stop. It happens every evening at 9:55 pm and the Tower is locked at 10 pm. (The only time it was late was during the Blitz of WWII when bombs were being dropped near the Tower....the Beefeater guards had to scramble, but did the ceremony very quickly before running back to safety. They had apologize to the King for being late to lock up the Tower.) They only distribute about 30 tickets to people in the general public and you have to write ahead of time to get them and receive clearance to enter the Tower.

We arrived at the Tower about 9:30 pm and a Beefeater guard met the group (those with tickets) at the main gate and let us in. They explained the significance of the ceremony and what we would be witnessing. Essentially, a Beefeater locks up the front door and is escorted by guards with the bearskin caps back into the tower and it goes like this:

Guard (with guns drawn): Halt! Who goes there!?
Beefeater: The keys.
Guard: Whose keys?
Beefeater: Queen Elizabeth's keys.

The guard then lets the Beefeater pass and the walk up the path near the White Tower and they do some marching and passing of the keys. It lasts all of about 5 min. and finishes exactly when the clock on the Jewel Tower starts chiming the 10 o'clock hour. It was a very fun and unique event to see!

Becky in front of the Tower waiting for the Beefeater to let us in.

The White Tower at night

Becky with the Beefeater Guard. (Since the Tower had already been technically locked for the night, they get around it by opening a small door within the gate and let people out through that.)