During any normal week at home Friday is a day of celebration. Ready for the weekend and fun. Friday for us was our last full day in London so we weren’t nearly as excited about it as we normally would be. Saturday meant we’d be back on the plane and headed home. What to do on our last full day?
The Tower of London of course.
We got there early but decided not to race to see the crown jewels. We instead turned up Mint Street and got away from the early crowd. There were lots of educational displays that we had all to ourselves. Really interesting stuff. Once we’d been there for a bit we turned and headed back into the moat area to join up with a Yeoman Tour. If you’re there – take the Yeoman Tour. These guys are fascinating. While we were on the tour our guide told us that one of the former prisoners at the tower was a certain William Penn. I raised a little cheer (Pennsylvania and all that). The guide noticed me and called me out on it. “Just remember, that famous Pennsylvania man was English… and a criminal!” Everyone had a good laugh. Then he continued, “Where are my Australians?” A few folks raised there hands. He pointed one out and yelled to him, “You sir! Go and give that poor American some counseling on what it means to have a criminal background!” It was a really funny bit in the middle of a tour packed with crazy amounts of information.
The crown jewels had a massive line. We worked our way in and got to shuffle past the display. It was impressive. When we got out the line was massive. It was really good to go right from the tour to the jewels. Then it was off to see the famous ravens. The ravens have gotten quite used to being close to people.
We got some great pictures here. It was a really good tour. Totally necessary to see if you’re in London. That took about half of our day. We grabbed some lunch at a Pret and then headed for a lot more photos. It was time to ride the London Eye.
What a massive wheel. The supports were crazy big.
It was a long wait in line… to get tickets so we could go wait in line. That was the most difficult part of the whole thing – it was very crowded. It took a long time to get on. It was also a bit odd that they didn’t stop the wheel when it was time for you to get on. It just keeps slowly turning and you have to hop on as it goes past. That’s one of those little details I somehow doubt would ever work here in the states. It was a great view as expected. The whole ride was smooth and stable.
And somehow, suddenly it was Friday night. We’d had an entire week.
We cleaned up and packed up our room Friday night. We were up and out the door at 5 am on Saturday and headed back home. It was a grueling travel day, but nothing went wrong and I was thankful for that.
Going on this trip was just fantastic. We built memories that will last a lifetime. We saw things and did things together. We took a ton of pictures – despite only being able to post a handful of them here. I can only hope we can scrape together our pennies and save up for another grand adventure.