London, a Pictorial 2: Tower, Tate, Toilets, & St. Paul's

TUESDAY

 First thing Tuesday, we visited the Tower of London 

to see the Crown Jewels (awesome) and hear a Beefeater storyteller.

The Royal Seal above the Entrance.

Then we found a collection of Royal armor in the White Tower.

Henry VIII's "skinny" armor with a very... optimistic... cod piece.

The world's smallest & largest sets of armor.

These are carvings that prisoners made while held captive at the Tower.

London Bridge!

 Cheese!

 Then we visited the Tate Modern on the south side of the Thames. 

And after we perused the art work, we had tea on the top floor. No joke, this was the view from our table. I took the picture below through the wall of windows.  

A walk back across Millennium Bridge and we were ready to take some St. Paul's Cathedral pictures.

Architecture is always better in black & white.

A quick run through of Fortnum & Mason (more tomorrow), and we ended the day with take-away pasties (PASS-tees) for dinner... think empanadas with delicious fillings like tomato, basil, and cheese.

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Wednesday

 Windsor Wednesday! Home of the royal family for 900 years!

The castle really isn't that picturesque on the outside, but from the inside (again, no pictures allowed) it reminded me much of Versailles. In this picture, you can see where an old moat was turned into a rose garden. That crafty queen... :) 

After ooh-ing and ah-ing over the state rooms iced in gold leaf, we headed out to find the toilets... A moment that lives in infamy. My dear, sweet, reliable, lifeline of a phone jumped from my back pocket into the icy depths of a British John... I know it was icy because I plunged my hand in after it. Just seconds later, my phone flickered it's last wavy screen shots. 

Within 20 minutes, we had found a supermarket called Waitrose hidden within the maze of Windsor township, and my phone was buried in a £1.99 bag of rice that I emptied into a ziplock bag well before I even reached the checkout counter. My American debit card crashed the system, and an additional 10 minutes later we were back at Windsor Castle to see St. George's Chapel and the tomb of Henry VIII laying in the middle of the chapel's quire.

A leisurely lunch at a pub (finally found me a tasty vegetarian dish) followed by Evensong at St. Paul's Cathedral rounded out the afternoon and early evening. The highlight of the mass was when the priest read, "...and Jesus said, 'WOMAN!...' " which is funny only if you know how I talk. I joked that the next time I was going to use the word "woman" as an exclamatory, I would precede it with "and Jesus said." ;) 

Back to Fortnum & Mason for their Take Tea in the Parlour service with a steaming pot of Jubilee Tea, scones with clotted cream and jam, and special little ice cream cakes. Finally, we headed back to the hotel to (let's be honest) play on Facebook. :) Not many pictures that day... Partially because my phone was dead. :(