Tower Bridge, Globe Theater & Saint Paul’s Cathedral (4 May)
Today is our last sightseeing day in London. Tomorrow we a going to rest (our feet are hurting from all the walking) and pack for our move out to the Cotswalds. We headed out to see the workings of the Tower Bridge and the Globe Theater.
The inside of the bridge was pretty cool. We took an elevator up to the top level and walked across the high level walkways. Luckily for us it was all covered. Today is the first day of rain since we’ve been in London and its turned a little chilly. As we walk through the different exhibits the kids get to collect stickers to fill up their Tower Bridge Passport. Mom and Dad just get to enjoy learning about this combined bascule and suspension bridge (which are fancy way of say a drawbridge and suspension bridge). It was pretty cool to see all the old mechanisms needed to raise and lower the bridge.
After that it was a walk alongside the Thames River over to the Globe Theater. On the way we stopped to see a sort of steam punk pirate ship and a real pirate ship. Too bad we couldn’t go on board one of the ships.
At the Globe we couldn’t go into the actual threat part since they had just started their 1:30pm show. But we did tour around some amazing exhibits that spoke about the person who dreamed/funded the rebuilding of the Globe Theater, Shakespeare, and all the props, make-up and costumes needed to put on a proper play.
Towards the end of our tour, Nazeriah was invited up on a small stag to help show us how people dressed in Shakespeare’s time – getting to dress up as Mopsa from The Winter’s Tale! She actually said that the corset helped her sit up straight (maybe I should let her wear one?).
Our last stop of the day was walking over the Millennium Bridge (the one that was destroyed by Death Eaters in Harry Potter) to Saint Paul’s Cathedral. It was simply awe-inspiring.
We made it from the ground floor, to the Whispering Galley, to the Stone Gallery – 376 little stone steps spiraling round and round and round. We couldn’t make it to the top, but we had such a grand view of London from where we were.
We tried out the Whispering Gallery to see if it really worked. It was a really great view from the balcony down to the bottom; and it was fun trying to hear the whispers on the other side of the balcony; but we couldn’t hear anything. Maybe because everyone there was talking to loud?
Then we walked down all the steps and another handful to go into the crypts. What astonishes Courtney and I is the amount of space that is devoted to people being buried. And some of them are quite elaborate sculptures and coffins.
After all those stairs and all the walking from the previous days, we were fried and needed to head home to rest our feet. Tomorrow we’ll spend the day resting and re-packing everything for our train ride to Brighton to pick up our rental car and then onto the Macbeth Cottage.
