Today was Tower of London day.

We tubed over, picked up our “skip the line” tickets. (Of course, at that hour there was no line, but, hey. And made the recommended bee-line to the Crown Jewels

These are the real jewels so they take guarding them very seriously.

They also take a dim view of anyone taking pictures of them. So if you want to see them in all their splendor, you’ll just have to get there yourself.

After the jewels we wandered about for a bit taking pictures of ravens and such

Eventually we joined one of the Beefeater tours

Mabye someone can tell me why this video is sideways and how I can fix it.

Following the tour we toured the Medieval Palace addition built over the “Traitor’s Gate”

From the adjacent battlements we got great views of the river and Tower Bridge

By then it was time for lunch.

Following lunch we wandered back to the tube stop (by way of the gift shop), stopping to take a few pics

Arriving back at St. Pancras station we split up.  Steve and Billie took a break and then headed over to the British Library (3 1/2 blocks from our hotel).  Cheryl and I went back to the British Museum.  There were a few items I wanted to capture on (film) and Cheryl agrees that one can never spend too much time there.

I started my trek in the Clock Gallery.  Here are a couple of interesting/significant clocks

The ball in this clock completes each circuit in (approximately) 30 seconds.  So the clock isn’t totally accurate.  Howeve it’s interesting.

The main reason for my return was to capture figurines from Roman era Britain.  Here’s one example

Following my photo-tour I met Cheryl (I’ll let her tell you what she saw.  I notice that she didn’t take any pictures.) and we had a snack before heading back.  Along the way we stopped off at the British Library to take in their spectacular “significant collections” room. We saw hand-written scores by Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Elgar, Britten, and others.  We saw hand-written pages of notes from famous authors. We saw a copy of the Coverdale Bible and the Tyndale New Teastament.  We saw an original copy of the Magna Carta. We saw a hand-written letter from Queen Elizabeth I, penned just 7 days before her death. It was overwhelming.

So much so that we finally gave up and retired to the Italian restaurant that we found on Sunday for a final trip supper.

Then it was home to pack. Tomorrow we leave about 10:00 for the airport. Our flight is scheduled for 2:00.  We should be in LA by 5:00 and after a 4 hour layover (looking forward to meeting Rob for supper) our last leg puts us in Boise just after midnight.

It will be a long day but after a highly successful, very enjoyable adventure it will be good to be home. If I think of it I’ll post a final comment on Thursday.

Till then…