Day 3: London

St. Paul's Cathedral

I'm writing this from the comfort of the Eurostar train to Paris. I was absolutely exhausted last night, too tired to write. That is the sign of a pretty fantastic day. In fact, this was one of my favorite days in London ever. We began our day with the standard bus tour of London with our extraordinary Blue-badge London city guide Sean. The highlight of the tour, as always, was a stop at Chistopher Wren's masterpiece, St. Paul's Cathedral. This is the third church to be dedicated to St. Paul on this site, a site that was once occupied by a temple dedicated to Minerva in the old Roman city of Londinium. The tour concluded at Buckingham Palace for the changing of the guard.

The White Tower

At this point the group broke up for our free time in London. I took a group over to the Tower of London. The Tower is one of the oldest buildings in continuous use in the City of London. It can trace it's exsitence back to 1066, the Norman Invasion. After crossing the English Channel and defeating the English at Hastings, William claimed the crown as King of England, and changed his name from William the Bastard to William the Conquerer (Who wouldn't?). He built the tower as a defensive fortification to put some distance (and thick stone walls) between himself and his new subjects (a kind of medieval Green Zone). The has survived civil wars, peasant uprisings, plague, a major fire, and the Blitz. It is still an active military post today, and houses the crown jewels. The yeoman warders (Beefeaters) actually live on the grounds with their families. The best part of this visit, for me, was the opportunity to see the evolution of the waistline of Henry VIII, preserved in the cold steel of his various suits of armor.

The evening hours featured a sampling of traditional English food at a restaraunt in Covent Garden. We sampled various dishes including steak and kidney pudding, gamekeeper's pie, fish pie, fish and chips, bangers and mash, spotted dick, and ginger pudding. My favorite, hands down, was the gamekeeper's pie. After dinner, our tour manager, Thomas, took us to The Coal Hole, a fantastic pub that was once frequented by Charles Dickens. It was the perfect end for a fantastic day.

 

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