London Part 4

London Part 4

The London Eye was good fun though London is curiously devoid of large landmarks easy to point out to 6 year olds. Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, St Paul's Cathedral and the Gherkin was about all I could offer Ben, Finley and Maja. Though we did love going up and spotting our old haunts

 
Not a bad view

 
More homework!

After hopping off the big wheel we caught a boat down the Thames to the Tower of London and on the way Ben lost his first tooth. Tell you what there's a bit of a difference hopping on and off a ferry between Bangkok and London. Not quite so unnerving in London.

 

Where'd that tooth go?

So we made it to the Tower of London and for a little while there it looked like we would be entering through Traitor's Gate. Not cheap the ole Tower, but worth it. It does rankle a bit though that we had to pay 20 quid each to the royals to look at their expensive ear rings, including the largest diamond in the world. Show offs!

 

Beefy-eater!

Now we've been to the Tower before (not for any treacherous reason of course) and yet we were still finding out new stuff. I love that place. Apparently they used to have over 200 wild animals kept at one of the gates. They had been given to the various kings and queens by foreign monarchs. They even got an elephant once though they didn't really know how to look after it. Instead of the Thames water (admittedly a tad putrid at the time) they gave it 18 barrels of English ale a day.

It died a year later.

Never drink English ale.

Eventually there were too many animals and in the 1830s they transferred them to Regent's Park to start the London Zoo. How about that!

We then queued up to see the Crown Jewels. All this queuing was still a bit foreign to us as when we lived in London we always went in the quiet times of year with little or no crowds. No matter they are still very impressive. Curiously most of them date from the later 1600s after the restoration of the monarchy when they must have created new ceremonial swords and crowns. I wonder what happened to all the stuff from before the English Civil War? Anybody got it stashed in their hall cupboard?

We also toured around all the suits of armour which were pretty impressive. Benny Boy particularly liked the fat Henry VIII one with an especially prominent bit of armour for his willy.

Boys and willies!!