London Again

Our second stop during spring break was London. We have a friend from Central studying there this semester so we stayed with her for three days. We started out the first day by touring the inside of Westminster Abbey. It is so beautiful! The abbey has detailed stone work and numerous sculptures. Much of the British Royalty's tombs are there as well including Edward I (conquered Wales), Elizabeth I, and her rival Mary Queen of Scots. The abbey also is the resting place for Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, Chaucer, and other historical individuals. Unfortunately, Westminster was one of the many places we visited were no photograohy was allowed.

Our other main stop for that day was the Tower of London. The Tower of London reminded me of Edinburgh Castle because they are both huge castles set up with miniature museums inside. It was interesting though. A fortress has been there since 1066; and over the years numerous famous prisoners were kept there including William Wallace, Henry VIII's sencond wife Anne Boleyn, and Elizabeth I during her sister's reign. We saw knight's armor and England's crown jewels. The Tower of London also has a royal mystery linked with it for Edward IV's two sons disappeared there in 1483 and their uncle took reign after Edward's death. Their skeletons were found in 1674 under a staircase, and a few theories exsist as to what happened.

Our second day was a busy day. We started out at the British Library, where we got to see original papers from Da Vinci, Beethoven, Shakespeare, Jane Austin and more. We even got to see the Magna Carta. We spent longer than we had thought we would in there so the end of the day felt a little rushed but we still got everything in. Next, we checked out Bourogh Market, a place with so many food stalls, one can actually get full just trying all the different samples. It was packed and hard to move around in, and the stalls seemed to never end. We didn't buy much there but it was fun to see what a market in London is like.

After lunch we walked along the Thames and saw Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, the Millenium Bridge, and St. Paul's Cathedral. We would have gone in some of the places but we didn't have much time and we didn't budget for ithem. We then took the Tube (which I can confidently find the right platforms now) to Hyde Park, one of the largest parks in London. It was a little cloudy but still a beautiful day. We walked a little ways along the Serpentine, and though I wanted to see the Gardens there too, we didn't have time to explore much farther than that. So we made our way out of the park and headed to the National Gallery.

On the way to the gallery we walked through Piccadilly Circus and saw the giant electronic screens. We didn't stay there long though, we just walked past it on our way to the National Gallery. In front of the gallery in Trafalgar Square, they put up a clock with two faces counting down until the summer olympics in London. Apparently, the clock broke down right after they put it up though because the one side said there is 469 days and the other side was still in the 500s. We then spent a few hours in the National Gallery which is awesome! We saw Da Vinci's cartoon, a few of Rembrandt's self portraits, and Jan van Eyck's Arnolfini Portrait. Most of our time was spent in these time periods, but when we were getting hungry we decided to skip a few years to the Impressionist period. There, we saw some of Van Gogh's work including his sunflower painting and some more of Monet's smaller waterlilly pieces. We then got pizza and called it a night. We had been walking all day, but with the craziness of London I didn't notice how much my feet were hurting until we walked out of the gallery. After that day, I'm surprised my feet still function.

Our last day, we didn't really spend in London. We took a day tour to Windsor Castle, Stonehenge, and Oxford. Unlike the Highland tour, this one was not cheap by any means and our tour guide was not quite as easy going. However, he was still pretty nice and the trip was well worth the cost. In the beginning, our tour guide mentioned English was not his first language and decided to speak his native tongue to see if anyone could guess. Molly and I knew it right away; it was Welsh. Turns out, he is from Conwy, a town right next to Bangor. We were pretty proud of ourselves. Our first stop was Windsor, the Queen's home away from Buckingham Palace. Unfortunately, she was not there. We got to see some of the rooms on display; they were so grand and full of paintings and elegant furniture. It might have been the coolest stop of the day if we had had more time. Unfortunately, we had to rush through the rooms and didn't get to see any of the rest of the castle. If I ever get a chance to go back to England, I'd like to go there again and take my time.

Our second stop was Stonehenge, the reason I took this tour. Stonehenge isn't complete anymore; only 30% of the stones remain. The others were either knocked down by the Romans long ago or sold off as material/souvenirs when the site was still privately owned. We were forewarned that it isn't as big as people expect it to be so we weren't surprised by its size when we got there. The stones are big and massive, just not as big as pictures lead you to believe. It is still very impressive though. The largest stone weighs 45 tons and takes 100s of people to move. The stones are also buried 8 feet deep to keep them stable so what you see from the top is only 2/3 the actual stone. What I found most impressive is that these stones weren't from around the area. The smaller ones were brought in from Wales by boat, and the larger ones were taken somehow from some hills in England. We couldn't get to close to the stones but it was still nice to walk around them and wonder how the workers created it with such simple tools.

Our last stop was Oxford. A lot of the builidings tourists aren't allowed to enter because it would distract the students, but they do allow us into Christchurch College where a scene from Harry Potter was filmed. It is a scene from the first movie where they come to Hogwarts for the first time and are greeted by the main lady professor. I honestly am not sure what scene this is, but I guess I can at least say I was there. We also got to see a dining hall that was part of the inspiration for the Great Hall in the Harry Potter movies. It did look similar but was smaller and had no enchanted ceiling of course. We walked around some other parts Christchurch College but didn't see much more. We headed back to London and called it a night. Overall, our trip had been wonderful. Our next stop was Bath.