curiouswombat (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
curiouswombat) wrote2006-04-19 10:27 pm
curiouswombat) wrote2006-04-19 10:27 pm
Entry tags:
Trip to London.
I have chased the cat off the key-board – much to his disgust – and am posting some pictures of our holiday in London.
We didn’t take any pictures of our hotel, or our shopping trips, or even the National Portrait Gallery, which is one of my favourite places in London, and now also Daughter-dear’s as well.
The hotel was very good, two minutes from Kensington High Street tube station, in a cul-de-sac – and we got a good price on the internet – if anyone ever needs the details, just ask!
My daughter is, of course, really into history, and so on our trip we visited a number of historical sites, and spent a good length of time at them, rather than dashing through! So most of our pictures are of ‘history’!
Actually I lied about there being no shopping pictures – we visited Covent Garden, and I took a couple of pictures of the roof – so here is a picture of one of the shopping halls at Covent Garden.
We visited both The Tower and Hampton Court – but tonight I am only putting the Tower pictures on my journal.
Because it was Easter week and therefore school holidays we found that at the Royal Palaces there were people doing re-enactments – an added bonus!
So these pictures show some of the re-enactment of the Theft of the Crown Jewels by Colonel Blood in 1671.
This is Talbot Edwards, Deputy Keeper of the Crown Jewels, and his daughter. (The aristocratic ‘Keeper’ lived somewhere else, and employed Edwards to do the job.)
Colonel Blood, disguised as a parson, befriended Edwards, with the promise of his well to do nephew as a suitor for Miss Edwards. The ‘nephew’ was actually his son, a petty thief, and on the day of the attempted theft Blood, his son, and his brother-in-law Hunt rendered Edwards unconscious and attempted to escape with the jewels – here is Blood junior -
And here are the three thieves making their getaway –
They were of course apprehended, in the first instance by Edwards’ son who arrived at The Tower unexpectedly, and the jewels were recovered.
(If you want to read the story, try here - http://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/England-History/ColonelBlood.htm )
You aren’t allowed to take pictures of the Crown Jewels – but they are stunning – both of us were actually most impressed, funnily enough, by a gold punch bowl the size of a bath covered with gold lobsters, barnacles etc!
However you are allowed to take pictures in the Royal Armoury – and I managed to take a few fairly good ones, despite the lowish light level – this first one is armour made for Henry 8th when he was first married to Katherine of Aragon – it is engraved with what are basically’ Henry+Katherine4Eva’ motifs!! I love the metal 'pleated skirt'!
And I think that this is the one made for Henry’s brother Arthur when he was Prince of Wales which is engraved with scenes from the life of Alexander the Great!
We didn’t see the ravens – they were staying in their little Raven-barracks!
We did get a good view of the now-famous ‘Gherkin’ building though –
And I took a picture of this ancient Chinese Cannon, because it reminded me of the Discworld -
Although people say how expensive the entrance fees are we thought it was well worth it - £15 for me, and £13 for D-d, as a student – you would pay more for a theme park, and our visit kept us occupied for six hours. And the food was very good, and not at all expensive by London standards – we were quite impressed!
And as we came away from the tower, I took the almost compulsory picture of Tower Bridge -
Later this week I’ll put some more of the pics up – and a couple of pictures of historical monuments that only a real history buff would make pilgrimages to!
We didn’t take any pictures of our hotel, or our shopping trips, or even the National Portrait Gallery, which is one of my favourite places in London, and now also Daughter-dear’s as well.
The hotel was very good, two minutes from Kensington High Street tube station, in a cul-de-sac – and we got a good price on the internet – if anyone ever needs the details, just ask!
My daughter is, of course, really into history, and so on our trip we visited a number of historical sites, and spent a good length of time at them, rather than dashing through! So most of our pictures are of ‘history’!
Actually I lied about there being no shopping pictures – we visited Covent Garden, and I took a couple of pictures of the roof – so here is a picture of one of the shopping halls at Covent Garden.
We visited both The Tower and Hampton Court – but tonight I am only putting the Tower pictures on my journal.
Because it was Easter week and therefore school holidays we found that at the Royal Palaces there were people doing re-enactments – an added bonus!
So these pictures show some of the re-enactment of the Theft of the Crown Jewels by Colonel Blood in 1671.
This is Talbot Edwards, Deputy Keeper of the Crown Jewels, and his daughter. (The aristocratic ‘Keeper’ lived somewhere else, and employed Edwards to do the job.)
Colonel Blood, disguised as a parson, befriended Edwards, with the promise of his well to do nephew as a suitor for Miss Edwards. The ‘nephew’ was actually his son, a petty thief, and on the day of the attempted theft Blood, his son, and his brother-in-law Hunt rendered Edwards unconscious and attempted to escape with the jewels – here is Blood junior -
And here are the three thieves making their getaway –
They were of course apprehended, in the first instance by Edwards’ son who arrived at The Tower unexpectedly, and the jewels were recovered.
(If you want to read the story, try here - http://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/England-History/ColonelBlood.htm )
You aren’t allowed to take pictures of the Crown Jewels – but they are stunning – both of us were actually most impressed, funnily enough, by a gold punch bowl the size of a bath covered with gold lobsters, barnacles etc!
However you are allowed to take pictures in the Royal Armoury – and I managed to take a few fairly good ones, despite the lowish light level – this first one is armour made for Henry 8th when he was first married to Katherine of Aragon – it is engraved with what are basically’ Henry+Katherine4Eva’ motifs!! I love the metal 'pleated skirt'!
And I think that this is the one made for Henry’s brother Arthur when he was Prince of Wales which is engraved with scenes from the life of Alexander the Great!
We didn’t see the ravens – they were staying in their little Raven-barracks!
We did get a good view of the now-famous ‘Gherkin’ building though –
And I took a picture of this ancient Chinese Cannon, because it reminded me of the Discworld -
Although people say how expensive the entrance fees are we thought it was well worth it - £15 for me, and £13 for D-d, as a student – you would pay more for a theme park, and our visit kept us occupied for six hours. And the food was very good, and not at all expensive by London standards – we were quite impressed!
And as we came away from the tower, I took the almost compulsory picture of Tower Bridge -
Later this week I’ll put some more of the pics up – and a couple of pictures of historical monuments that only a real history buff would make pilgrimages to!
no subject
Delighted to see that you enjoyed your trip and are now safely home. From reading his posts I had the feeling that S2C was rattling around the home front.
Hate to say this but I had the WTF moment when I saw that glass tower thing and it was only magnified when I saw the name. Did London decide that it just had to have a more phallic building than Paris?
By the way, did you see that Xander the Wombat has gone missing? A fan (obviously) in Oregon reported the disappearance this week. Willow the Wombat . . . along with Ethel the Aardvark remained safely at home.
I'm joking about Ethel, it just seemed so natural to mention her there. Now if I could get the picture of Juliet Landau having tea with an aardvark out of my head I'd be a happy man.
Although I bet either you or S2C could write a ficlet about that and it would make sense.
I saw a post over at Whedonesque where the actress who played the much maligned, perhaps unfairly so, Kennedy has come out of the closet. Apparently her love scenes with AH got her wondering about her sexuality.
Can't you just see Hannigan reading this and saying "Damn, I'm good."
Is the Hugh Laurie show 'House' showing where you're at? Michelle T. was just a guest star on a recent episode and did a very convincing job of playing a . . . whiny, resentful sixteen year old who managed to get in a life threatening situation. And it aired on Tuesday night no less. Sad to say it was her most convincing performance I've seen in a while. Missed her theatrical movies but saw her in a made for tv thing where she was trying to play a twenty something who abandons the fiance she no longer loves after he is crippled. The character was uninteresting and love scenes with her and an older actor were kinda creepy. She's over twenty but really hasn't changed all that much.
Take care and enjoy settling in. I'd wish you a nice cup of tea but I'm afraid I share Colin Mochrie's attitude toward the drink.
pgavigan
no subject
We do have House - I find it a bit difficult to take Hugh Laurie seriously, having sat through innumerable series of Blackadder when our daughter discovered it! I have seen some episodes, but not the MT one - I think we might be a series, or half a series or something, behind the US here though, so I'll look out for it anyway.
I'm not big on tea myself - although we did have afternoon tea at Selfridges whilst in London.