collage

collage

Day 75: Friday, April 1, 2011


In front of Buckingham Palace
    
Today, we had no choice but to wake up decently early; the walls in our hostel were paper thin.  I could literally hear every time someone shut a door anywhere in the building.  So, we got ready, grabbed a map from our hostel and headed out around around 10.  We stopped for a bagel, because not only does London have Chipotle, but they also have bagels.  We were happy :)  After breakfast, we went into a train station to get some information on the "hop-on, hop-off bus tours" that London has.  We ended up paying 24pounds for a ticket that was good for 24 hours.  However, we ended up using it the entire time we were there, because there was never anyone checking the time stamps.  So it was actually a pretty good investment; it gave us transportation the entire trip.  And London isn't really a walking city at all, all the sights are really far apart.  So we hopped on the bus outside the station, and began our tour!  There are several different lines that you can get on with the bus tour; in other words, one bus doesn't take you to all the stops.  You have to switch lines a bunch of times in order to hit all the major sights.  So we got on the blue line, switched to the yellow, and then got off at Buckingham Palace!  Some of the buses have live tour guides, others have headphones that they give to each person, with a recorded tour playing in 12 different languages.  We realized that the tours are pretty much identical whether you get the live tour guide or the recorded tour, and they were both very informative!
Buckingham Palace
Emily and I in front of the Palace
Speakers Corner
The palace was humongous!  It was about a block of gray stone with gold trimming, outlined completely with a black fence.  There were guards at every entrance, plus some.  The building was beautiful, however...London is kind of always overcast, so the gray skies above the gray buildings didn't make for the prettiest of pictures, but it was still really cool.  After the palace, we hoped back on the bus and took it around town a little bit.  They really have a great system: the buses take you right to all the major sights, you get off whenever you want, then get right back on where you got off, and continue on your way.  It's very simple.  As we were taking the route towards Westminster Abbey and Big Ben, we saw some pretty cool stuff along the way.  First we passed "Speakers Corner," where every Sunday, anyone who has something to preach, goes here and speaks his/her mind.  People gather around every Sunday afternoon to hear people express their opinions about anything and everything.  Kind of a cool concept!  En route to Westminster Abbey and Big Ben, we saw some cool sights and learned some interesting things:
This is Marble Arch.  Originally built on The Mall (the road in central London that leads to Buckingham Palace) as an entrance way to the Palace.  Historically, only the Royal Family is allowed to pass through the archways. 
Marble Arch in central London
 This is the Hilton Hotel, the tallest building in London.  It was originally supposed to be taller, but the Queen halted the construction, as she was afraid people might be able to peer into her gardens if it was built any taller.
Tallest building in London
This was the house where Mozart created his first symphony, at the age of eight!
Mozart's house
 London was the first city to invent the underground transportation system.  And this was the first stop ever made!   
Where metro's all began!
And this picture was just to London-esque not to take! :)
How perfectly London :)
When the bus arrived at Westminster Abbey, we hopped off!  This church was absolutely huge!!  It was cool to imagine that in three weeks there would be a royal wedding taking place there.  It's also hard to believe that this girl, who was just a normal girl, is about to become a princess!!  The whole city is in love with Kate and Charles.  Their names are everywhere, from the cover of books, to spray painted on buildings, to tabloids.  We wanted to go inside, but once we discovered that it cost 18pounds to enter, we quickly reevaluated how badly we wanted to go in.  We decided not that bad.  The outside was plenty beautiful, we decided that could suffice!
Emily and I outside of Westminster Abbey
A picture to really show the depth of the church.  It was huge!
Big Ben and Parliament are right beside Westminster Abbey, so we were able to walk straight to them.  I learned that "Big Ben" isn't the name of the tower connected to Parliament.  It is just the name of the bell that sits inside; the name of the tower is actually St. Stephens.  And we must have missed something, because we couldn't find any good place to take a picture of St. Stephens/Big Ben.  And being one of the most well-known attractions in London, this totally shocked me.  We ended up asking someone in the middle of the road to take a picture of us, while we stood awkwardly in the pedestrian crossing. There had to have been a better way to go about that.  I also learned that the Queen herself has no power in England.  She's more of a symbolic figure than anything.  The 650 members of Parliament and the Prime Minister make all the legislative decisions.    
Big Ben/St. Stephens :)
Big Ben and Parliament
On the bus, approaching Tower Bridge
After we were finished gazing and taking pictures, we hopped back on the bus and headed towards the Tower of London and Tower Bridge.  The Tower Bridge was really cool; it was teal!  The bridge was just repainted last year, costing the city about 2 million pounds, which was more than it cost to construct it in the fist place.  Earlier in the day, we bought tickets to go to the Tower of London.  They were 18 pounds, but everyone said it was a must-do, so we bit the bullet.  Before we went to the Tower, we got lunch at a little salad place across the street.  We were super stoked when we saw it because there are no salads in Italy!!  And if a restaurant does have them, they are like 15 - 18E.  However, naturally the salads were terrible  We immediately regretted not getting the Subway that was right next door, and I don't even like Subway.  I ate about six bites, then threw it away.  We walked back across the street to go to the Tower of London!  It was about 3:30 when we were entering.  We were supposed to get a free tour with our ticket, however, apparently the last tour was at 3:15pm.  Wish someone would have told us that?  So we ended up buying an audio tour with headsets, and it was definitely worth it.  We would have had no idea what we were looking at if we didn't!  
In front of Tower Bridge 
Outside the Tower of London
Traitor's Gate
We walked around the Tower, following the instructions of the recording.  We decided to save money and only buy one audio recorder, and each use one headphone.  We ran into some problems with this.  It may have been worth it to splurge the extra 2 pounds and get a second recording.

First, it took us to Traitors Gate.  This is the entrance where prisoners entered the Tower.  They were brought by boat along the Thames River; they would pass under the London Bridge, where the heads of recently executed prisoners were displayed on pikes.

Next it took us to Bloody Tower.  This tower was originally named the Garden Tower, but due to the murderous events that took place here, the nickname stuck.  Inside, we saw many torture tactics used on this prisoners, as well as carvings they left behind.  Many famous prisoners were held in here, including two of Henry VIII wives, Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard, Thomas Cromwell, William Penn, Sir Walter Ralegh, etc.  However, of the hundreds of people imprisoned in the Tower of London, only seven people got the "luxury" of being beheaded in the Tower.  It was considered a privilege to granted a private executions on Tower Green.  Everyone else received a very public execution outside the tower.
The field where seven lucky people were beheaded
Her Majesty's Crown
After the Bloody Tower, we were led to the Jewel House.  I was so bummed out that we weren't allowed to take pictures inside, because the Crown Jewels housed here are pretty unbelievable.  The Cullinan I diamond, also known as the First Star of Africa, is the largest diamond in the world.  It was 530 carats.  It was one of the nine diamonds cut from the original Cullinan diamond, which weighed 3,106 carats.  The diamond was literally the size of my hand.  The Cullinan II is also housed here, which is 317 carats.  The Koh-I-Noor is a 105 carat diamond which is mounted on the Queen's Crown.  The crown contains a total of 2,818 diamonds and 297 pearls.  And the Crown is only worn during the initiation of a new queen.  Thus, it has not been worn since 1953.  Can you believe that???  Something that costs that much and has that many diamonds, has been stuck in a stupid display case since 1953.

The Jewel House
After The Jewel House, we attempted to go on another tour with our audio guide, but we were informed that the Tower was closing.  Apparently it closes at 5:00.  Another tidbit of information that would have been nice to know!  We were kind of upset.  We paid 18pounds for a ticket that was supposed to come with a free tour and unlimited access all around the Tower.  We ended up missing the tours, had to pay for our audio guide, then were asked to leave before we were done!
Inside the Tower
After we got kicked out of the Tower, we decided to satisfy our craving for Chipotle...again.  So we hopped on the bus the same place we got off, and attempted to take it as close as we could to Chipotle.  However, about half way there, the driver came up top and told us that this route was ending, and we had to get off and catch another line that would be coming this way shortly.  So we followed directions, and got off the bus.  And then we waited...and then waited some more...and then finally decided that there was no bus other bus coming.  That driver totally screwed us.  So, we got our map out and began to make our way to Chipotle.  We knew that Charring Cross road branched off from Trafalgar Square.  However, the road that branched from the Square was called something else, and it turned into Charring Cross.  So we found Trafalgar Square, then continued to walk down all 11 streets looking for one that turned into Charring Cross.  Naturally, the very last road we walked down, was the right one.  So, two and half hours later, we found Chipotle.  And once again, worth every bite :)  






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