Monday in London

I have got to say that it's a very nice break in my day to look at London pictures during lunch. One of our favorite parts of London was visiting The Tower of London, which was includes old royal residences, the Crown Jewels, and well, prison cells and execution sites. Quality history, people.

Tower Wall - nice to look at while you wait to buy expensive tickets.
This guy was outside the crown jewels.
Matt was really into the military stuff here. There are several more pictures of various old guns, swords, and armor that I will spare my viewers.
This section of the tower was once occupied by the queen, in fact, I think the guards still call it "The Queen's House."
The White Tower - construction on this started in the 1100s. Yeah.
We made friends with one of the guards! He was furry!
I was taken with this beautifully simple chapel in the White tower.
After spending a good part of the day at the Tower, we crossed this - the Tower Bridge to explore neighborhoods on the other side of the Thames. We went to a pub for lunch and saw the recreation of Shakepeare's Globe Theater.
Then, here, St. Paul's Cathedral. Quite nice, but we kind of had to rush because we wanted to...
...see this, after climbing 533 very narrow, winding steps to the top of the cathedral. They close the tower before they close the cathedral and we barely made it.

You'd think we'd be tired after all that, and we were, but we weren't done yet. We went back across the river to visit the
Tate Modern art musuem. After that, there was an ill conceived search all over what was apparently the legal district for a historic pub, with Matt constantly assuring me it was just down the block or right around the corner. In the end, the pub was found and diet coke was procured, but I must offer a warning - beware the travel book map.