Day 2 - Sep 2, 2009 Last updated: 10/3/09 10:00am PT
Day two, more London sight seeing. The Tower of London (aka Her Majesty’s Royal Palace and Fortress). This is where the Crown Jewels are on display. They are very serious about not allowing pictures of the jewels. They have to protect the revenue stream. The tour guides are Beefeaters.
The White Tower is a building/castle in the center of the Tower of London. The White Tower was built in 1078, and the rest of the buildings were added over time.
The Tower Bridge over the River Thames, completed in 1894.
The Swiss Re Building (aka the Gherkin) in the London financial district, completed in 2003. It’s a very cool looking building, but seems odd next to all the other old buildings.
I found in all of Europe that the street signs are on the building walls, and not necessarily in consistent locations. I don’t understand how you’d be able to see the street signs as a driver. A lot of them are so far off the cross street that you’d have to turn your car on to the street just to read the street sign.
Ruins in the middle of central London. This is part of the London Wall, built by the Romans for defense around the 2nd century.
St. Paul’s Cathedral. This version was built in the 17th century, but there has probably been a cathedral on this spot since the 600’s. This place is huge.
The Millennium Bridge opened in 2000 and was closed two days later. It received the nickname The Wobbly Bridge. It reopened in 2002 after some re-engineering. It was very stable when we walked on it.
We went to the Cabinet War Rooms and Churchill Museum. These rooms are under the Treasury building in London and were used during World War II as a command center. The bunker housed up to 500 people. When the war was over, the facility was abandoned. In the 1980’s it was opened to the public. Everything was pretty much left in place when it was abandoned, so what you see on the tour is pretty much how it was, except for the mannequins. The last picture is allegedly an actual Churchill cigar next to his bed. He didn’t sleep here much though, but others did.
Then there was dinner. Master’s Super Fish, 191 Waterloo Rd, London. I love a place that fills you up with huge portions. And it tasted good too. We went there twice. Reasonably priced, the total bill for the two of us, £19.50, that was around $32.
