Travel With Tamra

June 17th, 1998
Day 4

Aerial view of the Tower of London.

Today we left at 8:00 and went to the Tower of London. We spent all day there. It was really neat. There are a total of 20 towers. There are 13 on the outer wall, 6 on the inner wall, and the main one in the very middle is called the White Tower. All of the royalty lived int he White Tower for a long time. The two walls and the 19 outer towers were all built to protect the White Tower.

We took a guided tour with a Yeoman Warden	.

We saw St. Thomas Moore's room where he was held, and the chapel that they allowed him to pray in.

The most impressive part of the Tower was the Jewel House. All of the crowns, rings and maces (staffs). All of them had hundreds of jewels in them. Even the swords had lots of jewels in them.

The site of the scaffolding where Anne Boleyn was beheaded.

Before we went on our own on the tour, we had a Yeoman Warden take us on a guided tour. He was really good. He really knew his facts. He was talking about how people who were about be executed (by being beheaded) would talk to the crowd before he was beheaded. He said that the longest recorded was 9 1/2 hours. He said, "He really talked his head off."  The Yeoman made lots of funny jokes like that.

The Chapel Royal of St. Peter was very pretty. The organ was huge. The pipes were about 2 feet in diameter.

The solid gold punch bowl in the Jewel House.

Another thing that I really liked in the Jewel House was this gigantic punch bowl. It was pure gold, and it was about 3 feet tall, 5 feet in diameter.  It was really pretty. Mom would have liked it. The ladle was about 6 feet long, pure gold, and the scoop itself was the shape of a seashell nearly a foot in diameter. I was amazed.

On the bus on the way to the tower, we saw thousands of people all dressed alike, all wearing the same clothes, all carrying briefcases, walking exactly the same in the same direction. They looked like they were all programmed, or being drawn by a supernatural force. It looked like something from the twilight zone.

The worst part of the day was that I left my bag with postcards and souvenir books at the cafe we went to for lunch. I felt real bad because Jenelle and Aunt Molly had things in the bag also. I offered to replace them, but they wouldn't let me.

Grandma McGee in the artillery room.

In the Tower, there was the artillery tower, there were hundreds of different types of guns and cannons. I think that the hardest part of shooting the cannons would be putting hte ball in the cannon. Some of the balls were almost 1 1/2 feet in diameter. They are lead, so they would seem like the would be too heavy to lift into the cannons.

The guards outside of the Jewel House.

Today would definitely be the best day so far, except for the pouring rain that we walked through after the Tower. At least it didn't rain while we were touring. It waited until we were done.

The Thames River from the Tower Bridge.

 June 16th, 1998
Day 3

I felt much better today after having some sleep. We woke up about 7:00 and got on a double deck bus to see London Bridge and the Tower Bridge. The bus was really neat, but he drove bad, just like the cab driver. We got to the Tower of London and the line was really long, so we are going to do that another day.

Her Majesty's Ship, The Belfast

We saw London Bridge, which was nothing spectacular. I saw something Dad would like a lot. It was a huge ship. Uncle David corrected me when I called it a boat. He said it's not a boat, it's a ship. I found out that it is the Belfast, the last warship from WWII.

The Tower Bridge across the Thames River

After London Bridge, we went to the Tower Bridge which was very impressive! It was built because there was too much traffic, and they needed a way to cross on the east part of the Thames River. It had to be a drawbridge because the ships had to get through to the port. The tour was really neat.

We also went to Charles Dicken's house, but it was closed. We are going to go back. I can't believe the nice cars here. They are all BMW, Mercedes, VW or Ford. They are all very clean and new.

The tube is still on strike, so we didn't get around very much. Hopefully we will do more tomorrow.