London: Day 3, Part 1

So, as promised, here is the continuing saga of my week in London:
Day 3: We had a full schedule today as we planned to see Westminster Abbey, The Tower of London and ride on the London Eye all in one day. And see them we did. Our first stop was Westminster Abbey, which had one of the longest queues I've ever seen. We waited outside in the cold for about 1 1/2 hours amusing ourselves by taking silly pictures like the one shown at left. (Did I mention it was COLD? I basically walked around swaddled in the same hat, scarf and coat get-up the whole time and still froze my ass off half the time...) However the wait was most emphatically worth it.



How to describe Westminster Abbey? I'd have to go with statuarily-gifted... (It's too bad the word statuesque is already taken, because it really feels like it OUGHT to apply.) Anyway, you get the point. I've never seen that many statues all together in one place in my whole life, they were literally cheek-by-jowl, and all of the sort to inspire you with a kind of open-mouthed wonder at the awesomeness of their erstwhile owners. One particularly arresting monument was the of Tomb of Sir Joseph and Lady Elizabeth Nightingale depicting Sir Joseph trying to save Lady Elizabeth from the skeletal hands of death. Pretty sweet!]



Our next stop was the Tower of London where we saw the Crown Jewels, and the Bloody Tower where Sir Walter Ralegh was held for 13 years. We also saw some rather nice cannons looted from the Napoleonic Wars and lots and lots of Beefeaters. The Crown Jewels (which include the world's largest diamond; 'The Great Star of Africa') were not too shabby, but I was most impressed by a solid gold nautilus-shaped punch server and its accompanying solid gold punch bowl which could easily hold enough punch to floor even Henry VIII.



Unfortunately after a good 10 minutes of searching all I could find was this detail from one of the handles which doesn't really give you an accurate idea of the sheer grandeur and swank of the punch bowl, but since you're not allowed to take pictures inside the Jewel House you'll have to content yourselves with this.



I have no idea who this guy is, but that's the Star of Africa he's holding, formerly part of Cullinan I, now located in the Royal Scepter. I found plenty of pictures of the scepter, but I just liked this guy for some reason, so here he is...

Okay, it's getting a bit late so I'll post the rest of Day 3 tomorrow! Goog Niter!