The Tower of London

We got off to a slow start this morning, so we dedicated the whole day to the Tower of London. The tower of London has had a number of jobs over the years, including housing the royal family (they still have a building within the walls as private quarters, though I doubt they often visit). The tower has also been a prison, gunpowder and munitions storage, and is now the home of the crown jewels of England, various kings' armor, all manner of guns/canons/spears/swords, etc. and torture instruments. Most of this list (minus the Crown Jewels) are housed in the White Tower, which is the central building in the Tower of London and the one you see in the first picture.

Both the first and second picture are taken from the outer wall of the Tower of London. The second picture is overlooking the Thames and the Tower Bridge. Incidentally, this is not the London Bridge, as you might assume if, like me, you've never bothered to find out. The London Bridge is just a nice wide, flat bridge. Much less impressive. I'll post a picture on one of my slow days.

So back to the Tower of London. Now we can say we've seen the Great Star of Africa, which was the largest polished diamond in the world until 1985 and which is mounted in the head of the 'Sceptre with the Cross' that makes up part of the Crown Jewels of England. All told, its a very impressive collection, and the Star of Africa is only one part. We did, however, find ourselves hard-pressed to leave a donation in the Crown Jewel's collection box. (yes, there is one)

Oh. And yes, we also saw King Henry VIII's armored codpiece.


We spent at least four hours in the Tower of London. On our walk home (Matt's hotel is an easy walk away, as it turns out) we came accross this excellently named pub, The Hung, Drawn and Quartered. This was about a two blocks from the Tower of London (as can only be expected of a pub by this name) but it was closed. It was too good to pass without a picture, though, so we contented ourselves with that and then went home to rest. After re-hydrating (we weren't about to spring for $3 lemonade in the tower) we headed out to another important stop on our list of places to visit: The Texas Embassy.


Now, Matt's from Texas, so this was especially important. The Texas Embassy is a restaurant close to Trafalgar square that boasts authentic TexMex cuisine. They did a fair job of it, too. You can see Matt and Russell with a chicken fried steak and "Tres Amigos" burrito plate, respectively. Matt is somewhat screened by steam from my fajita. The atmosphere seemed to meet with Matt's approval as far as theme restaurants go, and we spent some time wondering at how odd it felt to be in such a restaurant - yellow cowboy hats aside. Matt plans to mail them a liscence plate to add to their collection.

And for dessert: "Paco's Chocolate Revenge."