Last Day in London

Tower of London

Today we started out with the Globe Theater.  We messed up by walking on the wrong side of the river, so we took a taxi back to the globe,  We took a tour where we learned that they built a replica building to exactly match the materials and the architecture of the original Globe.  Originally Shakespeare could pack 3000 people into the theater; but now, with safety regulations, only 1700 can fit in the theater, 600 standing in the groundlings section and 900 in the seats.  Even the plays are performed the same way as in Elizabethan times.

We walked across the Tower Bridge to the northern side of the Thames River.  In the Tower of London, we visited the Bloody Tower first.  It got its name because two princes, King Edward VI's children, were put in there by the King's brother, Richard III, after Edward died.  Two months after the boys were last seen alive, Richard III died in battle.  They were reported dead or missing by Sir Thomas Moore.  The question was what happened to these heirs to the throne.  1.  Were they killed by Henry VIII who was next in line for the throne after Richard III?  2.  Were they assassinated by Richard III before he died in battle?  3.  Did they just disappear or escape?  It wasn't until the 20th century that two sets of adolescent male skeletons were found buried on the Tower of London grounds.  Anthropologists thought that these were the two princes, but the science has advanced so that now they could tell more if the bones could be dug up again.  However, they are now buried in Westminster Abbey, so this is impossible.

We walked through the vaults of the Crown Jewels.  Some of them were beautiful; but, at some points, this just got ridiculous.  However, Anneke loved them.

We then proceeded to the British Museum for an hour before it closed so that we could see the Rosetta Stone and all the sculptures that were originally at the Acropolis in Athens, Greece.  We closed the exhibit and went to a special outdoor dinner to end our stay in London.