London Trip Part 3

Like all visitors to London, we went to the Tower of London. You can't see it in this picture, but for Christmas, they made the moat into an ice rink. At one point the intention had been to go ice skating there with our nieces, but that didn't happen.



We started out with a short tour by a Beefeater. For the life of me, I can't remember his name, but he took a picture with us:



The White Tower, which now contains the Royal Armouries' collection:



The Chapel of St. John the Evangelist (in the White Tower):



Ruf with some very old armor once worn by royalty (but I can't remember who):



What would the Tower be without torture devices? On the right is The Rack, used to pull people apart. On the left is a horrible crushing device. A person was essentially folded into thirds (think fetal position), placed inside that little metal thing, then the metal was tightened until the prisoner was crushed. I think that sounds even worse than the rack!



A typically stoic soldier outside the Jewel House. How these guys can keep straight faces while tourists stand around gawking and acting like total goobers is beyond me! And is it just me, or are they recruiting small children to the military? This guy looks about 12 to me. Surely it's not because I'm getting old!



The Tower Bridge all lit up at night. After killing prisoners, they would chop off their heads and stick them on the bridge on pikes. They were left there until they rotted off. So civilized, don't you think? *gagging*





A shot of the Tower of London at night (Sorry about the blurriness; I was having flash issues):