London! - England Part Six

Monday May 23 2016

Monday, we had to pick up our London Passes, which also included our Oyster cards (which are used for public transport).  There was an underground station just a short walk from our hotel, "The Fox and Goose".  We were planning to buy a single day pass there since we didn't have our Oyster card yet, but the gentleman working at the station let us go through without one when we told him we had to go pick it up with our London pass, which was so lovely!

We came up out of the underground into Trafalgar square, and I had an "Omigosh-I-recognize-this-place-but-I've-never-been-here-before-this-is-so-cool!" moments, so we had to take a selfie there.  We planned on going back to Trafalgar for more pictures, but never actually made it back.

My dad had sent us the schedule of how they used to do London-in-a-day when he was in the airforce, so we tried to follow that because I thought it would be fun to follow in his footsteps.  First on the schedule was Changing of the Guard at Buckingham palace, but we didn't get there as early as we planned, and there were so many people that we decided not to stay that day but to try again another day.

Instead, we headed around the corner to a place we probably wouldn't have gone to see, except that it was free with our London Pass - the Royal Mews, where they keep the royal carriages and horses.  The people who work here, actually live here in a little community, and often children of workers will become workers here themselves (which seems very English of them).

The Queen used to do her Birthday Parade inspection of the Guards from horseback every year until 1987.  This was the same year her mare, Burmese, retired after 18 years.

This is the practice yard where they exercise the horses.

Next stop was Parliament Building with Big Ben (I took a lot of pictures of Big Ben) and Westminister Abbey.

We weren't allowed to take pictures inside the abbey, but we spent some time here. I listened to the audio tour, which gave Peter a chance to rest his still sore ankle, and allowed me to identify the tombs of several of my ancestors buried there: Henry III, Edward I, and Edward III.

I love the Red Double Decker Buses

The next few pictures were taken as we walked between locations.

We don't know why they have a statue of
Abraham Lincoln.

Before heading to the Tower of London, we stopped for lunch at a pub, and got our favorite, Orange and Passion Fruit J20.

We planned on visiting the Tower of London this day, but by the time we got here, there were no more Yeoman Warder Tours starting, which was the main thing we wanted to do, so we decided to hold off and go the first thing the next morning.

So we headed across the Thames.  We did the London Bridge Experience on this side of the river (again, only because it was free with our London Pass). The first part was supposed to be "just history" with a haunted tour at the end, but I still found it creepy.  Needless to say, I did not go through the haunted part.  (I love ghost tours, but I hate haunted houses/corn mazes.  I have tried them on multiple occasions so I can say that without reserve).  Peter went through it and wasn't fazed a bit because that's just how he is.

London Bridge itself is rather unimpressive.  It's famous because it's really old, I think (although everything is old in England).  It also used to have houses built along the top, but it burned down and when they rebuilt it, this is what they built.

Then we went to the Tower Bridge.

(Much prettier, in my opinion)

That odd looking building is City Hall

They have a glass floor on the upper level.  They also have an app that if you download it while your up there, it will let you see what it looks like for the drawbridge part to open and close as if you were standing above it.  It's hard to describe but pretty cool.

Peter made me walk on the glass floor while looking down and without holding his hand.  Punk.  But I did it!

That evening, we were scheduled to see The Phantom of the Opera.  We both are familiar with this play, but Peter hadn't ever seen it performed live.  It was quite enjoyable.  We analyzed it afterward.  The Phantom really brought out the crazy side of his character, which was well done and quite interesting.  Christine was a strawberry blonde and Meg a brunette, which was totally weird!  But Christine did a very good job making her character seem young and somewhat naive but also more pure.  The Roul played his character in a good strong way, but we felt he should have also brought out a little more of the tender side of that character, at least when dealing with Christine.

Inside the Theater

Roul and Christine

Picadelly Circus at Night

Tuesday May 24 2016

First thing Tuesday Morning was Tower of London!

We went in to see the Crown jewels, first (of course they won't let you take pictures inside there, either).  Then went back over to wait for a Yeoman Warder tour.

If you look really close you can see the
silhouette of an archer.

The Yeoman Warder tour was great fun.  England has so many historic places, it seems, that rather than try to stock them with tour guides, they just do audio guides everywhere.  However, audio guides are not nearly as interesting as real people telling stories.

The Portullis

Traitor's Gate - High Profile individuals who were under arrest
were brought in through here directly from a boat on the Thames

Peter listening intently to the Yeoman Warder

We had to hurry because we had another activity scheduled slightly outside of town at 1:30, but we did go inside White Tower, which is the oldest part of Tower of London, built by William the Conqueror.

On the way into the White Tower there is this staircase off to the side.  Under it was found the bodies of two young boys, said to be the bodies of two Princes who were living at the Tower for their "safety".  The story goes that their Uncle suffocated them (likely so he could take their throne).

They had all sorts of armour set up inside.  Some of it was gifts from other countries.

We could have spent an entire day at Tower of London, but we had to cut it short so we could get to our Harry Potter Studios tour!!!!  This place was HUGE.  They had this ginormous warehouse with nearly every set from the movie inside.  It was brilliant. 

Movie Posters from different countries.

Doors to the Great Hall!!!

First set of robes worn by Daniel Radcliff wore

A portrait in the Gryffindor Common Room - made to look like a young
Professor McGonagall based on a young Maggie Smith

Portraits were made based on people who
worked on the films

Animal Actors

There were people throughout the studio, and we were encouraged to ask them questions.  I finally came up with one to ask: What is your favorite set?  The young man who answered me was stationed at the Death Eaters set, and he said that was actually his favorite.  He pointed out the contrast between it and the Weasley's home, which was the set right next to it.  The Burrow was warm, inviting, and homey, where the Death Eater's meeting room was cold.  Even the fireplace managed to seem cold.

Then he asked us, "Would you like to see a murder weapon?" Of course, we said yes!  He asked which HP death was the most upsetting - the answer being Dobby.  Then he showed us this rubber knife that was the knife Bellatrix threw in the scene where she murders Dobby.

We didn't get the traditional picture with the Hogwarts Express because that's where everyone wanted a picture and we didn't want to have to jostle for our turn. 

You could go inside the train, and they had each car set up as a scene from a different movie.

The last car was with mannequins of Harry and Ron from the first movie, and directly across from it were mannequins wearing the costumes of Ginny, Harry, Ron, and Hermione from the very last scene of the last movie.

By the time we finished the indoor studio section, we were very hungry (since we'd never gotten around to lunch).  We ate at the cafe, and we finally got to try Butterbeer!  It tastes like butterscotch. My favorite part was the whipped topping, which wasn't just whipped cream, but something sweeter.

Some of the larger set pieces were outdoors, such as the bridge, the Knight bus, Privet Drive, and Godric's Hollow.

Then there was a section for animatronics and the makeup/magical creatures props.

Next was Diagon Alley.

They had a wall of concept art paintings, which were gorgeous! I would happily hang some of these in my house!

Then the Hogwarts castle model.  This was Peter's favorite part.  He loved the detail they put into this model to make the castle look older - parts of it even in ruins.

A wall of "wands" that actually had the names of people who worked on the films, which we figured out because one of them said "Rupert Grint"

Wednesday May 25 2016

Wednesday was sort of an odds-and-ends day where we did a few of the things we just hadn't gotten around to yet.  We went back to Buckigham Palace for the changing of the guard, which was still super crowded and really, really long.  We weren't as impressed as we expected to be, to be honest.

One of my bucket list items was to find the Police Box at Earl's Court.  We are major Doctor Who fans, which is why this was a must-see.  This is the one you can go inside on Google maps and see the inside of the TARDIS.

Then we went to this huge shopping center called Harrod's.  It was rather overwhelming, and everything there was ridiculously expensive.  We wandered a bit and then left.

I finally got to ride a red double-decker bus!!!  I think those things are so cool.

We rode it down to Saint Paul's Cathedral.  The thing that impressed us the most about St Paul's is the massive size!

A tiny Peter in front of the Cathedral

A tiny me in front of the Cathedral

The cathedral from the Thames, several blocks away - it still looks big!

We hadn't planned on seeing two shows because we thought there would be other things we wanted to do in London.  But we talked about it on Wednesday and debated doing a night bus tour or another show.  My favorite Disney movie since I was little is Lion King, and there were adds all over London for all of the shows, including Lion King, which I'd never seen on Broadway.  So we decided that we would see if there were tickets available for that night. Sure enough, there were!  And we got pretty good seats, too.  I loved it.  The acting was occasionally only so-so (young Simba and Scar were probably the weakest - Scar because of his singing), but the visual effects and costumes were stunning.  And the African chant musical numbers were really neat. It was so awesome.

Adult Nala's costume