LeMasters in London: Tower of London II

Today started off as good as any I can remember. Turbo and Hampton had snuggled up to me in bed and made me the meat of a corgi sandwich, and Kristen yelled from the kitchen. "Breakfast is ready!!". And what a breakfast it was! Real pancakes, not those crappy English 'American Pancakes', bacon, and eggs. I had become sort of a pancake afficiado before we left, and had my own secret recipe, and made the monster plate sized pancakes probably 3 times a week. Needless to say I was having withdrawals, and this was my fix. Unfortuntly I think it may result in alot more expensive purchases at the 'American Store'. Oh well!!

Afterwards we were off to Kennsington Palace, the former home of 7 princesses, and most recently the late Princess Diana. They are currently undertaking massive renovations, to be completed 2012 and thus have put together a 'interesting' exhibit highlighting the lives of the princesses. I wouldn't advise making the visit unless you have a season pass, because you might be dissappointed with the experince. Kristen did enjoy the dresses, which were the star of the show, and afterwards asked me about them, I said 'what dresses'? Anyway, they did not allow pictures so there isn't much to show, so I guess we will have to wait for a full tourist report till 2012.

Since things didn't go as planned we decided to swing back by the Tower of London to finish our tour. We set off through Hyde Park, and since the weather finally broke and had made it up to a tropical 41, walking through the park was really nice. (don't worry, its back down to the 20s as I write this now). This picture is looking out over the 'Serpitine' inside the park. This lake will host the Olympic triathalon in 2012. It will also host the Christmas morning Peter Pan Cup. 40 degree water and swimming, we might just go to watch people freeze different parts of their bodies off.

I tried to get Kristen to feed the swans like this crazy lady, but she wasn't having it. Can't say I blame her. This lady got freaked out shortly after I took the picture and ended up jumping up and down and running away.

It turns out that the 'Bloody Return' wasn't as bloody as I had imagined, and we didn't have as much left to see as I originally thought. Got to see the dungeon, which they had made mostly G rated, but interesting for sure. They say there were only 41 cases of torture at the Tower. The 'Bloody Tower' also included the chambers of the Tower's most famous prisoner. All in all didn't look like such a bad place to be imprisoned. We also visted the Martin Tower which held all of the old crowns from the past. (sorry pictures not allowed again), with all the jewels removed. Each looked like a honeycomb, and help up to 1,200 diamonds per crown.

Sir Walter Raleigh's prison cell. Looks pretty good to me!!

If you remember I mentioned that the prisoners often had alot of time on their hands and made some pretty impressive carvings in their cells. Here are some of the more intricate.