Locked in a Tower

This morning we went to visit the only paid attraction in London we plan to see: the Tower of London. You guys might not know this about me, but I'm a huge nerd for history, especially history that has to do with England during the Tudor period. So I told Alan that if we only did one paid thing I wanted the Tower to be it, and he obliged.

It turns out that what most people (including me) know about the Tower- namely it's reputation as a prison- is only a small bit of its history. It has also been used as a royal mint, a record office, a royal residence (I knew that one), an observatory, and in the last 150 years or so a museum. All this I learned in three hours!

In any case, I've read a lot about the historical figures who have occupied the Tower over the centuries- as visitors and as prisoners- and it was pretty cool to stand in the places they stood. It was also cool to see some of the stuff they have kept there in the museum- like Henry VIII's armour.

With that being said, I think in retrospect I might have been satisfied to see it from the outside. It was expensive to go in, and I don't know that it was totally worth the price. For one thing it was much more of a "museum" than I expected- I sort of thought it would be restored to recreate the original use. Of course, it would be sort of hard to do that given that it has had so many uses over time. Also, it was really crowded. There were some things we skipped, like viewing the crown jewels, because the line was too long. Admittedly this was our fault- we are having a hard time getting to bed at night because it stays light so late (it is just dark now at 10:30pm!). Perhaps if we had gotten there when they opened it would have been more fun.

All in all we have decided that so far our favorite parts of the trip are the ones that don't involve the traditional tourist sights at all- not something I would have predicted.