Hung Drawn and Quartered

Photo: Hung Drawn and Quartered.

Day 20: More Streets of London

Up early to jump on the open top bus to explore the city further. We headed up towards Kensington Palace. Although I’m not a monarchist, I wanted to see the gates where all the flowers were placed after Diana’s death. The gates are a bit sad now – lots of dead flowers and faded memorials. We then headed to Harrods. Wow! I was expecting impressive, but it was still a surprise. Never before have I taken photos in a department store. The food halls were incredible, so too the Christmas shop and the Egyptian decorations in the stair wells rivaled any museum.

Next jump off the bus was Marble Arch, near where Carol lived and worked. She gave us the walking tour of her past life before rejoining the bus back toward Trafalgar square. We never made it that far on the bus – the traffic was at a standstill and we decided it would be quicker to walk and catch the tube to meet Jim at The Tower of London.

In my ignorance of some aspects of history I had no idea the tower was so big. I was expecting a tower I guess! We did a guided tour for an hour, them explored for another two hours. So much to take in. I noticed none of the Crown Jewels dated back further than 1661. I asked a guard and found out that Cromwell had all previous crown jewels melted down when he took control in 1649 (or  thereabouts – I’d better look it up) We then had a drink at “Hung, Drawn and Quartered”, a pub near the tower.

From there we headed back toward Russell Square in the sardine tin at peak hour. Even Jim couldn’t believe it. He said he’s never seen anything like it, even after a major football game. We searched for a pub to have dinner, but everywhere was too busy, so we ended up at a little family run Chinese restuant. Great food. Back to the hotel to pack the bags for the trip to Paris tomorrow.