The last of Europe

I left France, sadly, and spent two days in London revisiting things and going places I regretted that I had missed last time I was here, two years ago.

The British Museum- home to my mummies and other Egyptian art I studied last year.
St. Paul's
I got up early in the morning and walked down to the Tower of London. One of my favorite places in London. (Bloody and historical) A bit expensive to get in but it's where three queens of England were killed (two married to Henri VIII) and where Sir Walter Raleigh was held for 15 years and many other gruesome stories which are all told my Beefeaters (shown below) one of the queen's bodyguards. There are only 37 of them and they all live in London Tower, they have 22 years military experience, are at least Sgt. Majors and are all funny.


This just amused me. It's King Henri VIII's armour. It was massive and had quite a belly not to mention codpiece. He wore it once but then got too fat to fit into it again. Here is White Tower, part castle and housing for William the Conqueror and following kings and queens part torture chamber. It's in the middle of The London Tower complex. Note the raven in front. Raven used to flock to the tower because it was the highest building and because eating was good (lot's of corpses around) then they were mostly killed off until an old prophecy suraced about bad luck if the ravens ever left the tower so now six are kept and cared for always. They sometimes live to be four times the age they would have been in the wild and are huge.
And of course Tower Bridge.
Across the Thames is the Tate Modern. A free modern art museum that made me stop saying "I could make that." and start asking "Would I have thought of doing that?" It had glass cubes, pictures made of blood but I think the best were the video works and the street art. Here is a mural done on the outside I liked a lot and thought Grayson would like. (He's holding a video camera) (Bert you would love this museum)
Then to end the day I went to see Timon of Athens by Shakespeare at the Globe Theater. I got standing tickets for 5 pounds and here was my view. (We couldn't take pictures when actors were on the stage) It was a good play but there are reasons it's not famous.