Tower of London, wobbly bridge - London day 3

Day 16, Sunday 26 August

Grabbed the Oyster cards and headed into the underground to the Tower of London. Getting there was easy and our London Pass had us inside the Tower very quickly.

The Tower of London

We decided to start with a walk around the walls which also took us through a lot of the palaces, living areas and the prison towers. The ‘Tower’ is a collection of buildings that have evolved since William the Conqueror first built the White Tower and the walls around it. It has grown into a collection of palaces, houses, prisons and other buildings. wandering through these and learning some of the history was fun. It was not as much fun for a whole stream of prisoners who have left their mark on the place.

There is the usual number of stories and plots and it is hard at times to accept that some of it is true. Those that were executed at the Tower were from the Royal's and executed there really to save them the indignity of a public execution. It did continue to be place to execute people until the end of World War II so they have been doing it there of a long time.

The Tower area is a collection of buildings including houses, palaces and administration buildings as well as prisons

Tower Bridge from the Tower walls

The Shard and other modern office buildings from the Tower.

The White Tower is the oldest building at the Tower of London.

The White Tower has been used as an armory for hundreds of years and holds a collection of weaponry.

 

The White Tower also displays armour used by the Kings of England.

 

Anne Boleyn lived in the Queens houses at the Tower before her execution on 19 May 1536.

Then it was time to go through the strong rooms containing the Crown Jewels. To say they are magnificent is to put it lightly. The poms have certainly crawled over a few dead bodies to put this collection together! There is a whole row of crowns and royal implements to signify the power of the British monarchy. The amount of precious stones involved is amazing with the royal crown alone containing a mere 2818 diamonds and 297 pearls. There are another three crowns with similar numbers including the Queen Mum's crown that also contains the Koh-i-Noor diamond that is 105 carats (some would say the diamond was stolen from India). The Cullinan Diamond is in the Sceptre and is a massive 530 carats and the second Cullinan Diamond is in the Imperial State Crown and is 317 carats.

You don't get the opportunity to see this sort of wealth very often and it was stunning display when all of the crowns were mixed with solid gold table settings and all sorts of extravagant pieces made of solid gold. You are basically walking through a big bank vault to view this stuff and the security behind it must be enormous.

This is the building in which the Crown Jewels are stored.

The Ravens

The ravens are one of the Towers most a famous sights. Legend has it that Charles 11 was told that if one of the ravens left the Tower, the kingdom and the fortress would fall. Toe sure that this calamity did not occur, the Ravenmaster clipped their wings preventing them flying off and bringing down the kingdom.

The Royal Beasts

For over 600 years, exotic animals were held captive at the Tower. Wild beasts were seen as a sign of power and prestige, much like we might covet a fast car or label clothes, kings throughout the history of the Tower collected creatures to create a majestic royal menagerie. From lions and tigers, eagles and owls, to elephants, kangaroos and even a polar bear. The bear was kept tied too rope, which allowed it to swim in the Thames, but not escape. Snakes were kept in ovens to keep them warm. And monkeys roamed the grounds during the day, but were put to bed (literally) at night.

The wobbly bridge

Originally opened in June 2000 then closed almost immediately due to structural problems, London's modern Millennium Bridge is now a favorite with locals and tourists alike.

Unfortunately, during the first two days that the structure was open, the thousands that crossed it noticed that the Millennium Bridge seemed to wobble. It was quickly nicknamed ‘The Wobbly Bridge’ or ‘The Wibbly-Wobbly’ and was immediately closed for modifications, just three days after it opened.

Modifications succeeded in entirely eliminating the problem, but those necessary modifications caused the bridge to remain closed until February 2002. It cost an additional £5m to complete the changes, but no significant vibrations have been felt since that time.

The Millenium Bridge

Big Ben

Got the best view yet of Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament from the Wibbly-Wobbly Bridge. I had always thought Big Ben referred to the clock and the statue but not true. Your fast fact for the day - The Clock Tower of the Palace of Westminster – is officially named Saint Stephen's Tower – but it is commonly known as the Big Ben. There are five clock bells housed inside St Stephen’s Tower. The clock inside the tower was the world's largest when it was installed in the middle of the 19th century. The name Big Ben actually refers to the clock's hour bell, the largest of the clock's five bells. The other four are used as quarter hour bells.

Imperial War Museum and Courtauld Gallery, London Day 4

Day 17, Monday 27 August

Plan for the day was to the South for the Imperial War Museum and then make our way back to the apartment via a gallery in The Strand.

Imperial War Museum

We took the underground to the Elephant and Castle Station and walked to the museum. The museum is in the former Lambeth Mental Hospital building on the South side of the river and at the front has the barrels from two World War I battleships. Inside in the first main display area is a collection of military equipment including tanks, rockets, airplanes and mini-submarines.

Cath wanted to go through the Holocaust exhibition so we headed there and ended up spending three hours going through it. It tells the whole horrible story very well using a range of media from photographs, film, artifacts, models and lots of material to read. What it did bring out was the system wide infrastructure that was used to achieve the objectives of the Holocaust.

We definitely needed a lunch break after that so found a quiet corner in the cafe for lunch and then did quick tours of the rest of the museum. While it tells the military history of the UK it also has interesting displays about the effects on the daily lives of citizens.

Front of the museum with two enormous gun barrels from WWI battleships.

The main large display area at the museum.

Focke-Wolfe and P41 Mustang

Spitfire

German V1 rocket

The only Handley-Page bit was this walk through section of a Halifax bomber from WWII. They have whole one's at their other aircraft museum.

Courtauld Gallery

Catching the underground to Temple Station we walked to the Courtauld Gallery. It is a great little collection covering the renaissance, impressionist and post-impressionist periods. It is a very focused collection and is in about ten rooms with each painting given plenty of wall space in the well lit rooms. The gallery is in Somerset House on The Strand which is an interesting building itself but provides a great space for the Gallery.

I loved the impressionist paintings most and the French mush be really peeved that Courtauld had the good taste to buy paintings like The Card Players by Paul Cezanne and At the bar of the Folies-Bergere by Rodin etc along with a lot of other great paintings. The museum was peaceful and quiet and it was great to be able to walk up and look at the paintings in detail and also to be able to take photos.

At the bar of the Folies-Bergere

One of the great exhibition rooms

One of the rooms with the impressionist paintings. Notice the crowds!

We walked back to the apartment and caught up with emails before heading around the corner to a great little Italian restaurant for dinner.

British Museum, catching up and London weather

Day 15, Saturday 25 August

The British Museum

The current motto for the Museum is ‘A museum of the world, for the world’ but some would argue that it is a collection of spoils from the period of British colonisation and exploitation. It is a collection which attracts a lot of visitors and while every effort is made to justify the moving of relics to the museum it is hard at times to accept the damage to sites that must have resulted from the collecting.

We rocked up for opening at 10am and already there were crowds at the popular exhibits. Most people were fine with sharing space and looking at things but some of the tour groups get very annoying with their rush to photograph anything the tour guide says is important and rush off to the next important thing. We had decided we wanted to see the Rosetta Stone, the Parthenon statuary and the special horse exhibition and anything else would be a bonus. There is so much to see here that you could spend days and not see all the displays.

The Rosetta Stone

The English did not need to rip the Rosetta Stone off a temple, they managed to get it as some compo from the defeat of Napoleon, whose troops had found it. It is one of the most visited exhibits at the museum and it is an impressive bit of stone. Finely carved it is very easy to see the two Egyptian language scripts (hieroglyphic and Demotic) and the classical Greek. It was the key to unlocking the mysteries of hieroglyphics.

The Rosetta stone

Parthenon Sculptures

The English would say that Lord Elgin did the Greeks a great favour in convincing the Ottoman rulers of Greece at the time to let him remove a lot of the statuary from the Parthenon and move it to England. He didn't move a little bit, he moved most of it. The extent of the collection in the museum is staggering. Our guess is that today on our visit to the British Museum we saw more of the Parthenon statuary than we are ever likely to see in Greece.

The room holding the material from the Parthenon

The exhibition provides a lot of information and uses multimedia to reconstruct some of the friezes from drawings and pieces that are in other museums which gives you a good idea of how impressive the original Parthenon must have been. The figures in most of the full relief statuary in the museum are  already headless because they had already been trophied by earlier invaders.

It is easy to understand why the Greek government wants their treasures returned but it is difficult to see that the Brits will every want to give it back.

Two statues from the East pediment, minus heads of course because they were the easy bits for earlier souvenir hunters to break off rather than taking the whole figure that was going to weight a few tonnes.

One of the metopes from the outside of the Parthenon that is in better condition. In this one a centaur tramples a falling lapith. Tough buggers those centaurs.

A section of frieze from the inner wall that has also survived well. More horsemen riding in rows around the Parthenon

Mesopotamia and Assyria

Rooms and rooms of wall sculptures from various palaces as well as huge figures from temples that have been removed by numerous British archeological expeditions tell stories about ancient courts and societies. The material is so expressive and beautifully carved that you can spend hours just looking at the detail in the carvings. We didn't have the luxury of the time but it was great to enjoy them in the time we had.

The horse: from Arabia to Royal Ascot

This was a special exhibition at the museum and covered the history of the horse and its influence from their domestication around 3,500 BCE to the present day. We were not allowed to take any pics but the exhibition used lots of drawings, paintings and objects to tell the story of the working horse and also of  the Thoroughbred, which was selectively bred from Arabians for speed and is now raced at world-famous courses such as Royal Ascot.

The whole modern British Throughbred industry is able to be traced back to three Arabian stallions, which when bred with native mares, produced the Thoroughbred breed. I was impressed and I hope you are too!

Catching up with Deanna

We managed to catch up with Deanna Vener, a former workmate at ESA in the afternoon. Deanna has been travelling in Europe for about a year and is currently teaching English at courses in the town of Reading. She was travelling with a group of students to Covent Garden so we met at the market. As we sat down for a coffee the heavens opened and we had a great electrical and rain storm. Deanna was restricted in her time and there were no seats inside so we just sat it out under the coffee shop umbrellas and Deanna's umbrella.

It was great to be able to catch up and share the travel stories. Deanna is hoping to make it back to Sicily soon to start teaching English there.

Coffee with Deanna in the rainstorm under two layers of umbrella.

It does rain here

The whole city received the storm today and we were surprised at the number of people who were not prepared for it. Surely it rains like this a lot!

Neal Street in the pouring rain.

Westminster and about - London day 1

Day 14, Friday 24 August

We became your regular, run-of-the–mill tourists today. Sturdy, practical shoes, back pack full of rations and emergency supplies we headed out early to catch all the important monuments and museums before they could disappear!

Westminister Abbey

We began our invasion of the wonders of London at Westminster Abbey, a far more inspiring Christian place of worship than Salisbury Cathedral and very much a who's who of British history. Every English monarch since William the Conqueror has been crowned there and a lot of them are buried there as well. It is a great building crammed to the hilt with tombs and memorials of all shapes and egos. Its tells great stories of British history and of the families that have run the place.

We were not able to take any photos inside so you will just need to believe us that it is an interesting interior to visit and much more interesting than most of the churches we have been to.

North entrance and side of Westminster Abbey.

Jewel Tower

Back in the days before banks King Edward III needed somewhere to keep his jewels and bullion so the Jewel Tower was built in 1365 as part of the original Palace of Westminster. Only the Jewel Tower and Westminster Hall survived a fire that destroyed the Palace in 1834.

It is an interesting building and no doubt secure in its day but would not be much of a challenge for most modern thieves.

The Jewel Tower

Big Ben

Big Ben would have to be one of London's most iconic landmarks. It looked as if it had been polished up for the Olympics but it is certainly an impressive clock and tower. The Elizabeth tower (Big Ben is the bell for the clock) is massive and is named after Queen Elizabeth II, because the tower at the other end of the parliament building is named after Queen Victoria.

Big Ben's timekeeping is strictly regulated by a stack of coins placed on the huge pendulum. Big Ben has rarely stopped. Even after a bomb destroyed the Commons chamber during the Second World War,  Big Ben continued to strike the hours.

The chimes of Big Ben were first broadcast by the BBC on 31 December 1923, a tradition that continues to this day.

Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament

Just to prove we were both there!

Horse Guards

Walking down Whitehall towards The Banqueting House, Cath could not resist going over to the Horse Guards and checking out the guards on duty. Two guards on horses and two on foot put up with tourists all day. They must just love this part of their job!

The Banqueting House

We had no queues to contend with at the Banqueting House and the people that were there were immersed in the atmosphere of the place. This an extraordinary building both in terms of history and architecture.

It was the first major classical building to be completed in England. The proportions of the main hall give it a feeling of symmetry and balance. The building was commissioned by Charles I, designed by Inigo Jones and completed in 1622. It features an amazing series of paintings on the ceiling painted by Peter Paul Rubens. They are the only Rubens paintings still in their original location.

The Banqueting House was the location of the execution of Charles I in 1649. Oliver Cromwell apparently decided that as The Banqueting Hall was Charles' favourite building he should be executed there. He walked through the hall to a scaffold outside and was beheaded as England descended into civil war.

The main Banqueting room.

The central panel of the Rubens ceiling paintings

Trafalgar Square

The square is always busy but is is now trying to cope with the extra visitors and preparations for the Paralympics. At least there is some space at Trafalgar Square to have the information tents and the count-down clock for the Games.

Trafalgar Square with the National Gallery above it.

In the evening we met up with Kate and Luke Wynne for dinner at a tapas bar in Soho. Kate and Luke told us that they are expecting their first baby in February next year. Very exciting and there was a lot of talk about babies. They are enjoying living and working in London but are planning to spend a month back in Melbourne after the baby is born. It was great to catch up with them and they had lots of recommendations on places to eat and shop near our apartment as Luke works in Covent Garden.

With Kate and Luke at Polpo tapas bar in Soho.

Onward to London

Day 13, Thursday 23 August

Rhinefeld House oozes tranquility, sad to leave this magnificent haven deep in the
Rhinefield Forest but London calls. So like Dick Whittington we are off to follow the mileposts to Waterloo Station where we leave our two wheels and take to the streets of London.

Breakfast was in the Amarda room at Rhinefield House.

Drive to London

The drive to London was relatively straight forward except our recalcitrant GPS decided to take a more circuitous route via Heathrow Airport and bringing us into the city from the North-West rather from the South. It was a slow drive into central London as we waved to the crowds outside Buckingham Palace and those just dispersing after the house guard parade. We passed by Westminster and eventually made it to Waterloo Station. By the time we had off loaded the car, we were in no mood to tackle trains so we caught a cab instead. This was indeed a wise move as within a very short time we were delivered close to our accommodation in Covent Garden. The apartment in Neal Street is a very compact and totally satisfactory apartment right in the middle of the action in Covent Garden. After passing our introductory lesson on working appliances, we headed out to collect our London Pass cards and to start exploring London.

Cath tackles the blog from the living area of the apartment in Covent Garden.

London

Our cab driver had made a passing comment about how the crowds were light today. We were flabbergasted to hear this as our impression was that the whole games community were all still milling around London. Somewhat overwhelmed by noise and people, we decided to retreat to the relative peace of the hop-on-hop-off bus. In fact this was a great strategy, as it allowed us to get our bearings in a city that neither of us have visited before and start our strategic planning for our assault on the museums, places or interest etc that London has  to offer, and that we want to comprehensively explore in four days!

Our ‘The Original Tour’ hop-on-hop-off bus took a meandering route through central London and we figured out where lots of place were on the map rather than on the Monopoly board. We passed by Trafalgar Square, Piccadilly Circus, Green Park, St James Park, Hyde Park, Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament, hotels like – the Savoy, the Grosvenor (with an assortment of Bentleighs, Bugatti Veyrons, Lamborgini's etc), Buckingham Palace (Marm was not in residence; apparently she was taking a short break at Balmoral), The London Eye (ho-hum), Kensington Palace, Westminister Abbey, Marble Arch, Saville Row, The Tower of London, Ebury Row; in fact we covered all of a monopoly board and more, because then there were the people. Lots and lots of people, jostling, clumping, talking, arguing, sticking together in fear of getting lost, and rushing around with familiar ease. But whether they were black, white or anywhere in between there were sooooooo many people.

Dinner tonight was traditional English fish and chips on the patio at the apartment.

Toasting the English fish and chips using a Chilean wine on the roof of the apartment.

From the sea to the forest

On the way to Salisbury

I spied a crocodile this morning on the road out of Lynmouth. One of the many unusual decorative features the locals of Lynmouth call sculptures; scattered around their town. These bizarre creations are made of mysterious assortments scrap metal. Some look like they have been pilfered off medieval chain mail, others look like they were once part of old diving equipment. The resulting creatures are weird and unusual to say the least. One place claims to be the home of aliens; and given their tastes in sculpture I would not be surprised to find a galek or two behind the closed doors of Lynmouth.

Lynmouth with the tide about half way in. This part of the coast has a massive tide range.

We have just driven the most dense forest imaginable, Exmoor State Forest to be exact – Robin Hood and his merry men would be right at home in these parts and after negotiating 25 degree gradients through the forest we have reached the plateau, which opens out to rolling hills of compact, mauve heath ... not a tree in sight; an amazing contrast to the lush, dense woodlands of earlier. In places the forest is so dense that it forms a canopy that arches over the road completely, creating a tunnel effect. We have needed all our faculties on the road this morning, not only have we needed to be on the lookout for wandering sheep, but pheasants and deer have also been obstacles we have had to avoid.

Salisbury

Once we cleared the rolling hills of Devon it was freeway travel most of the way to Salisbury. We ignored the Park and Ride signs and drove into the centre of town and easily found a park. We had some lunch and then walked up to the Cathedral.

The ham and cheese croisant comes with crisps, most things come with crisps!

It is an impressive building built in a very open area of Salisbury. We normally see Cathedrals hemmed into narrow plots in the centre of town but not this one, it has acres of land around it.
It is a massive building but the main church is built in a restrained Gothic style. The builders have created a Cathedral that is strong and tall by using a central nave with side isles. Inside it is a very long and high interior but very much over scale for a place like Salisbury (more on that later). The Cathedral is different in that it is also a monument to recent events, having memorials to Iraq casualties as well as tombs for 13th century knights.

Salisbury Cathedral is massive and surrounded by large grassed areas. The spire is the tallest in the UK.

So massive you would have no idea what was happening at the altar if you were even a third of the way back!

We both came away thinking why would you build a monster Cathedral in a place like Salisbury. The answer lies really in the history of Salisbury and Old Sarum, just out of Salisbury. Old Sarum was the home of the Kings of England from the iron age until the Normal conquest and then from the time of Henry I (1100 – 35), who moved his court from Winchester to Old Sarum, until the reign of John (1199 – 1216). We drove out there and walked up to the remains of the old castle. The iron age hill-fort, the remnants of the Norman castle and the remains of the cathedral are there to explore. It was great looking at the history of the site and the information available helped it all to make sense.

King John had a falling out with the cathedral clergy and the bishop happened to own the land that is New Sarum (Salisbury) and decided to build a new cathedral there. The cathedral at Old Sarum was demolished to provide materials and important graves were moved and that is why Salisbury has this crazy big cathedral. The arguments between King John and the Bishop of Old Sarum were the catalyst for the creation of the Magna Carta. An original version of the Magna Carta is displayed at Salisbury Cathedral and we were surprised at how small it is, about the size of an A3 sheet in fine latin print.

Old Sarum was great because it provided information to make sense of the place and put it into some perspective with its surrounds. After our time at Old Sarum it was time to head back through Salisbury to Rhinefield House at Brockenhurst.

Entrance to Old Sarum using a modern bridge over the old moat to the original stone age ring fort. The remains of the Norman gate can be seen.

The central area of the ring fort that would have been markets and meeting places from medieval times.

The remains of the Royal Court buildings inside the fort at Old Sarum.

The fort was well protected from all sides.

Rhinefield House

Bernie has chosen this New Forest location for our last night on the road before we head to the hustle and bustle of London tomorrow. I am almost reluctant to leave our nomadic travels as each day has been an adventure, discovering new and even more wonderous places to experience.

It was an easy 30 minute drive South of Salisbury and the last few kilometres are through the Rhinefield Forest. Rhinefield House has existed in its present form since the 1880's but there have been dwellings on the site since the "New Forest" was first proclaimed by William the Conqueror in about 1097. The house is a great mix of styles from English Manor to European Gothic. Rooms have been built with themes with the main dining room being the Armada room with a great overpiece of the English fleet routing the Spanish Amada and the Alambra room being copied from the Alambra palace in Granada, Spain.

The facade of Rhinefield House.

The back of Rhinefield house.

Not quite Versailles but still impressive.

 

The roof and light of the Alambra room.

A corner of the Alambra room.

Detail of the walls from the Alambra room. Craftsmen from Spain spent 2 years building the room.

We relaxed by the ornamental pools before heading off to dinner. Overall it was a great day with the contrasts of the ruins of Old Sarum and the scale of Salisbury Cathedral and then the serenity of Rhinefield House.