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| Bobbies on horseback patrolling London bridge |
We have one week left in London then we move on to Tenerife, Canary Islands. Today is Chuck’s birthday. Actually today and the next few days are the warmest in the afternoons so we decided to take those three days and go back to London. So, I told Chuck I was taking him to London for his birthday!
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| London Bridge Tower |
We left later in the day so the sun was warm but also in our eyes during our walks. The good news about leaving later is we leave after lunch so we don’t worry about dinner until we return and take a power bar to give us a little energy during our walks.
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| London Bridge Tower |
Our first stop was the Tower of London. This is another castle but more medieval. We decided, for a few reasons, not to go inside. 1) price of admission was much more than we have paid in other places.
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| London Bridge Tower |
About £10 pounds more. 2) We have seen many medieval castles in the last few months and 3) We heard the crown jewels (the only reason I wanted to go inside) were on display at Windsor Castle temporarily only to find out I mixed up the dates.
It was a pretty interesting from the outside and very large! I’ll make sure we see the Jewels the next time we are in London.
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| Panoramic view of London Bridge Tower |
It is the 200th celebration of Queen Victoria’s birthday so everything was not set up as they normally would have been.
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| Mesh constructed Lion and Lioness protecting the castle
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Our next trip was to Kensington Palace. We decided to walk instead of taking the train and because of this we arrived at closing time. Pretty much all the monarch’s have lived here at one point in their life.
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| Kensington Palace |
Princess Elizabeth, now Queen Elizabeth II, lived on the grounds in her younger years and this is where she met Prince Philip.
In 1981, apartments 8 and 9 were combined to create the London residence of the newly married Prince of Wales, Charles and his wife, Diana, Princess of Wales, and it remained the official residence of the Princess after their divorce until her death.
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| King William III at South Gate of Kensington Palace |
Her sons, Princes William and Harry were raised in Kensington Palace. Upon Diana’s death, the gates at Kensington Palace became the focus of public mourning with over one million bouquets, placed as tribute before them stretching out into Kensington Gardens. The Princess’s coffin spent its last night in London at the palace.
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| Kensington Palace |
On the morning of 9/6/1997 a tenor bell signaled the departure of the funeral procession carrying the coffin from the palace on a gun carriage to Westminster Abbey for the ceremony. Diana, Princess of Wale’s residence was stripped bare and lay vacant for 10 years after her death until it was split back into two apartments. One of those apartments is used by four of Charles’s charities and the other becoming home to the Chief of Defense Staff.
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| Kensington Palace South Gate |
In 2011, Prince William and Kate moved to the Kensington Palace grounds, to the four-story, 20-room Apartment 1A, formerly the residence of Princess Margaret. Renovations took 18 months at a cost of £4.5 million pounds.
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| Queen Victoria Statue at North Gate, designed by her daughter Princess Louise (Duchess of Argyll) in 1893. |
In 2012, Prince Harry moved to a one-bedroom apartment but he moved out in 2018 after marrying Meghan Markle.
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| The Shard |
While walking to Kensington palace we stopped and ooh’d and aah’d over “The Shard”. This building is referred to as the Shard of Glass, Shard London Bridge and formerly London Bridge Tower. It is a 95-story skyscraper, 310 meters/339 yards to the tip. As a comparison, the Empire State Building in NYC is 484 yards to the top of the antenna. The Shard has 95 floors and was completed in 2009. BASE jumpers reportedly jumped from The Shard more than a dozen times between 2009 and 2012. Crazy people!
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| Museum of Natural History |
We also stumbled across the Museum of Natural History. We didn’t go inside but the outside structure and the iron gate was beautiful. It was large and a beautiful place.
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| Museum of Natural History – The gated fence is a brilliant red and gold |
After a long day, we walked back across London bridge and spent some time watching the boats, tourists and took some photos of the Tower Bridge. This bridge is beautiful and very impressive. It is a combined bascule (movable) and suspension bridge, built between 1886 and 1894.
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| The Tower Bridge |
The bridge crosses the River Thames close to the Tower of London and has become an iconic symbol of London. Because of this, Tower Bridge is sometimes confused with London Bridge. In comparison, London bridge just isn’t impressive but has a good story.
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| British and City of London flags fly high above the bridge |
One of the rebuilds of the London bridge wasn’t made very well and was sinking an inch every 8 years so in 1967 the bridge was sold to Robert McCulloch (McCulloch Oil and McCulloch chainsaws) for $2,460,000 USD and moved to Havasu City, Arizona.
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| Tower bridge across the Thames (pronounced “temz”) river |
Rumor has it that McCulloch believed mistakenly that he was buying the more impressive Tower Bridge but that was later denied.
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| City of London Coat of Arms – The Latin motto of the City is “Domine Dirige Nos”, which translates as “Lord, direct us”. |
We actually walked across that bridge in Arizona many years ago!
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| The London Bridge Song |
After a very long afternoon and many birthday wishes along the way, Chuck had a nice time on his birthday.
May God bless you always!
Chuck & Lea Ann
WorldTravelReynolds 