8^th October, 2013 – a day in London, following the Thames.

Today is our last full day in England so we had a few big things to do. We caught the train in to London and made our way to Tower Hill, where there is still a small section of Roman-era wall, from when the city of London was a walled city.

We visited the Tower of London – what an amazing place. Far too much to take in with just 1 visit, but we did the best we could! Despite the name, it isn’t just a tower – there are multiple buildings within a walled complex.

The oldest part is the White Tower, from around 1070. It’s now home to various exhibitions, including one called the Line of Kings – this is a number of dummies in suits of armour on wooden horses, and has been a must-see sight at the tower for around 400 years. The suits of armour are meant to represent kings since William the Conqueror in 1066 – some are genuine, some are 17^th-Century fantasy!

                                                                                                                                             

We saw the Traitors’ Gate, where prisoners including Ann Boleyn were brought to the Tower, and the Bloody Tower, where legend says the young princes were murdered by their uncle, Richard III (the one whose remains were found under a car park last year).

There are so many things to see here. We saw a performance based on Isaac Newton – although mostly known to us as a scientist, he was also Master of the Royal Mint and responsible for overseeing trials of counterfeiters. This is ideal for a lively pantomime tour of the Tower, as the Mint and the prison cells were both in this complex. Also, you get to see actors running around the Tower in silly wigs with lots of audience participation and silly bits for kids.

We stayed until time to go and have some lunch, then caught a bus across Tower Bridge and with views of the Shard.

We wanted to do the Globe Theatre tour, but there was a play on at the time (referred to by name on posters outside but only as “the Scottish play” inside the ticketing area of the theatre, superstition is alive apparently) so we’d only be allowed to see the museum, not the actual theatre, so we didn’t bother.

Past the Tate Modern, with an artwork called Endless Stair outside, which was pretty cool to climb all over.

Also a beach along the Thames with an excellent busking sand sculptor (yes, we dropped a coin) – he was getting a bit frustrated because he couldn’t get the hands right and the tide was coming in!

Our next big thing is one of the biggest: the London Eye! This was one of our must-do places, but we were feeling a bit nervous when we got there! There was a bit of a queue for tickets, then a short but very cool 4-D movie of London scenes (4-D means you wear 3-D glasses and see things flying out at you etc, then when there are bubbles everywhere on screen you get real bubbles appear; when you see trees bending in the wind you can feel a real breeze and so on). We left the little cinema feeling excited and with real fake snow in our hair, and headed for the Eye.

We were herded in to a capsule with another family and a few other people but it wasn’t really busy and we had plenty of room to sit down or to get up and wander around taking in the view from different angles.

The ride takes around half an hour – you do one complete rotation in that time. It’s a wonderful thing, seeing the roofs, hidden courtyards and distant perspectives gradually open to view, then slowly recede as you descend back towards ground level.

One more stop for the day – it was late afternoon by this time but we headed out for Greenwich for some very different but still dramatic London views and a chance to stand on the Prime Meridian, 0 degrees longitude, where the Eastern and Western hemispheres meet.

Then back to Windsor for dinner at a pub on our last night in England!