To the Tower of London!

We started the morning taking the trains to Paddington Station (again, you can get around London easily, but not quickly), where we caught the first stop of our Hop On, Hop Off tour bus.  It was fun to have a good guide narrating the sights as the bus—clearly a close cousin of magical London’s Knight Bus—made impossible feats along crowded, narrow roads.  We saw quite a bit from the top deck before we disembarked at the Tower of London, a place Dwayne and I wanted to see, and with the Crown Jewels and Armory, hoped would be just as fun for the kids.

But we found something better.  Margaret and Jeremy and their two kids were finishing up a week in London and our trips overlapped by an entire Tuesday before we both flew out the next morning.  They had already been at the Tower for hours before we showed up, but there was still plenty to see and we joined forces.  And I have firmly believed in the power of kids playing with someone they haven’t fought with for the last 24 hours.   

We love this family!

The White Tower was really interesting, with a small collection of Henry VIII’s suits of armors, showing a history of impressive girth increase.  

But we all giggled at his, ahem, largest one.  Definitely compensation going on.

I must be compensating, too!

We had almost talked ourselves out of seeing the Crown Jewels—the line was ridiculous, but the 9 of us were together, and standing in a long line was a great time to catch up and hear about their five weeks in the Ukraine.  And, honestly, I would have regretted getting all the way to London, and then the Tower, and not seeing the lavishness that is the royal coronation regalia.  Was I the only one disappointed that the golden Coronation Spool was used to dribble blessed oil over the proceeding, not for a morning yogurt before the hoopla begins? 

  

The Tower of London has been, in its time, a dungeon, palace, living quarters, commmand center, and hundreds year old second story pit toilet.  We enjoyed walking through the re-outfitted royal chambers, where the finest of that period lived half as comfortably as the least of today’s lower class.  But they did have thrones.

















We were all feeling a little this way towards Wes towards the end of the day.

 

Why?  


Well, this is the best shot we have together...

….after I cropped his butt out of this one.

Sigh.

We closed down the Tower at 17:00 but with an entire evening ahead of us, we hopped onto the Thames and made our way up to the Parliament area, where the nine of us had a nearly perfect dinner—less by food standards than we sat the five kids at one table together, and then got to enjoy an adult meal at a separate table.   

It is our only full day in London, but we enjoyed ourselves immensely.  We'll be back, Brits!  (Sorry again about Wesley.)