The Baths in Bath

The Roman Baths in Bath are some of the oldest still-functioning spa baths in the world.

ANGELS IN THE ARCHITECTURE

Yesterday was quite a day. My friend and I took an all-day field trip from London to visit Windsor Castle, Bath and Stonehenge. It was a 12-hour day, but it was so worth waking up at the crack of dawn to crawl sleepily onto a tour bus with 50 other people to see what we saw that day.

The tour started at Windsor Castle, which is an interesting hybrid of museum and living quarters for the royal family. The Queen, or “Queenie” as our tour guide called her affectionately, was not at home that day, but there was still so much to see and do in our short two hours at the castle. My friend and I saw the changing of the guard, a beautiful ceremony that’s more like a ritual with fancy footwork and a military band. We also saw the grave of King Henry VIII, buried in St. George’s Chapel on the castle grounds, as well as Queen Mary’s Doll’s House, the State Apartments and the royal family’s beautiful China collection.

Next we headed to Bath, a UNESCO World Heritage site where every building is built from the same yellow stone, even the local McDonald’s! (Seriously. Google “McDonald’s Bath, England.”) Since it’s a World Heritage site, nothing can change in the little village; it must remain historically true to its origins.

We visited the Roman Baths, which date back to the first century AD, and then headed for a quick little jaunt around the city, which was packed with people, no matter where we went. My friend and I had lunch at a little shop that served pasties, which are like little pies that you eat like a sandwich. It was our only real English meal of our entire stay in London, and it was delicious, despite the negativity surrounding English cooking.

Our final stop of the day was Stonehenge, which yes, is just a bunch of rocks piled up on the ground. And yes, they were smaller than I imagined. However, despite all that, it was still amazing to see something that I’d only ever seen on TV or in history books with my own eyes. Living history, right before my eyes. So close, I could almost touch it…

Today was one of my favorite days in England because we interacted with so much history. It was a whirlwind day, but well worth the lack of sleep. Tomorrow, we leave for France!

Bird Woman

A woman sits on a bench in St. James’s Park in the City of Westminster, London.

WEEKEND MISER

Yesterday, my friend and I took advantage of the free city tour Sandeman’s offers in nearly every major European city, including Dublin and London, to get a good glimpse of our home for the next five days. The tour included such sites as Buckingham Palace, Trafalgar Square, Big Ben, Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Parliament. It was a three-hour walking tour led by a highly entertaining and informative guide. I think a free walking tour of the city is a great way to get oriented and learn about some of the history behind the city, which only makes it come alive for me. Our guide told us a lot about Henry VIII, Guy Fawkes’ failed Gunpowder Plot to blow up Parliament on November 5, 1605, and the guards at Buckingham Palace. All around interesting.

As we passed through St. James’s Park in front of Buckingham Palace, I noticed this woman sitting among the birds. She wasn’t even feeding them; she was just sitting on the bench, and the birds came to her. It was quite interesting to watch, as more came and some flew away. She was super friendly, too, encouraging me to take this photo of her.

Tower of Terror (London)

A Yeoman Warder entertains a small crowd on a guided tour of the Tower of London on a hot July day.

LOCATION NOTATIONS

On our trek across South Bank yesterday, my friend and I made it to the Tower of London. We were especially excited to hear about the Tower’s history of torture and murder, since a lot of people we’d read about in our history books, including Queen Anne Boleyn, Queen Catherine Howard and Guy Fawkes, had been executed there.

It was a long hot day, but we pressed on through the heat to wander around the courtyards after a fantastic tour by a Yeoman Warder, one of the watchmen at the Tower. The Yeoman Warders guard the Tower day and night, and because their duties are so intensive and time-consuming, they and their families are required to live at the Tower. The duties include wrangling tourists, filing incident reports when ambitious tourists get a little too rowdy, protecting the Queen when she resides there and tending to the Tower’s well-being. As a guardsman of the oldest and most important fortress in London, it is the highest honor to be a Yeoman Warder, which requires at least 22 years of service in the British military.

On the tour, we passed the site of Queen Anne Boleyn and Queen Catherine Howard’s executions, Guy Fawkes’ prison, Elizabeth I’s exile chambers and the White Tower, pictured behind the Yeoman Warder in the photo above. According to our tour guide from yesterday evening, who guided us on a walk throughout London’s most haunted sites, the White Tower is supposedly the most haunted site in the whole complex, with several ghost sightings from visitors and Yeoman Warders alike.

Three ghosts in particular have been seen several times throughout the Tower’s history; there are even Warders’ reports on sightings. The first two ghosts appear together because they were brothers in life. They are reportedly the “lost princes,” the only two sons of Edward IV at the time of his death, who were too young to take the throne after their father’s passing in 1483. They were placed under the protection of their uncle, Richard III, who lived at the Tower and would act as king until the elder son came of age. It is widely believed Richard III killed his nephews to keep the throne because one day, both boys simply disappeared from the Tower. Now, they appear every few years on the spiral staircase in the east tower of the White Tower, ghostly figures, huddled and crying. The strange thing is, when builders were repairing steps on that spiral staircase in 1674, they uncovered a black box with two small skeletons in it. Assumed to be the bones of the lost princes, King Charles II interred them at Westminster Abbey. The bones were dug up centuries later and analyzed, but results are inconclusive. We still don’t know who they are or even if the lost princes were really murdered. All we have are the ghosts. Maybe.

Another ghost at the Tower is that of Anne Boleyn, who drove herself into a mad frenzy the night she was to be executed by decapitation for adultery and incest, which were only trumped up charges to allow her husband, Henry VIII, to marry another woman who might produce sons and heirs for him. Anne was privately executed in the inner courtyard of the Tower, and according to two Yeoman Warders, she still walks the grounds, the hood of her cloak covering her missing head.

London Calling

The Elizabeth Tower, which houses Big Ben, the bell that tolls each hour on the hour, stands tall above London, gleaming in the night.

THE NOCTURNALIST

Today was quite a day. After our slow day yesterday, my friend and I decided to make the most of today, cramming in quite a lot of sightseeing in London. We started the day back at the Globe Theater to get a guided tour of the stage. It was really interesting to learn the current theater was actually built in 1997. It is the third iteration of the Globe Theater, after the first two burnt to the ground in 17th century london. Wooden buildings with thatched roofs tend to do that when cannons are fired out of them for sound effects.

We then wandered up to Tower Bridge and the Tower of London. I’d like to point out that, while everything seems close together on the River Thames, especially on South Bank (the embankment along the River Thames that covers the area near the London Eye and over to Tower Bridge), it’s not. It took us nearly an hour to walk from the Globe Theater to the Tower. It was worth it, though, to amble up the embankment and take in the sights–along with about 10,000 other tourists and Londoners. It was a beautiful sunny day, so everyone and their mother seemed to be out. The crowds are a little daunting near the major tourist attractions, but the attractions themselves are worth navigating the hordes of people. They’re tourist attractions for a reason.

In the evening, my friend and I did a “Grim Reaper” tour, wandering with a tour guide throughout some of London’s most haunted spots, including the Tower of London and the sites of the five known Jack the Ripper murders. Our tour guide said if any city in the world is haunted, it has to be London because it’s basically a mass grave, with thousands upon thousands of skeletons buried underneath the city for centuries. Hundreds of thousands of people have died horrible deaths in London, from the time when it was the Roman city of Londinium in AD 50. Our tour guide said there are spirits all over the city to this day. Who knows if that’s true, but it was spooky nonetheless, since every time someone digs just a little in London, they usually uncover bodies.

London as a whole is a little overwhelming. There’s so much to do, so much to see, so many people, so much walking, and it all involves so much time. I’m not sure I could ever live here, but I do love visiting. Whenever I move to Dublin, I’ll definitely be visiting London quite a bit, especially since one of my friends from back home lives here. He moved here last year, and I met up with him this evening to catch up. It was wonderful seeing a familiar face among so many new ones.