It’s our second day in London, and we’ve worked out most of the jet lag.  Today is the day of the long walk.  Our ambitious goal of the day is to walk the 3.6 miles from our hotel to the Tower of London.  We typically walk 3-4 miles per day back in Orlando, but we usually take breaks along the way.  We could take the “Tube”, but we wanted to take the time to walk past Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, and along the Thames River until we reached the Tower of London.  We were warned that if we wanted to see the crown jewels, the lines tended to get long later in the day, and the best way is to get there at the opening and proceed directly to the crown jewels.  The only problem with this plan is that the Tower of London opens at 9:00AM and to be there on time, we would need to wake up at 6:00AM, get breakfast, and be on our way by 7:30AM at the latest.

Tickets are sold by entry time, and sell out quickly, but I managed to score a couple of 9:00AM entry tickets before we left Orlando.  The weather was looking good – al little cool at 50 degrees, but at least it wasn’t raining.  After a few missteps with Mapquest Walking, we managed to be on our way with time to spare.  Using an app like Mapquest for walking directions is a little confusing at first, but once we were able to spot the Thames, it was much easier.  Today is also the King’s birthday celebration, so there were police everywhere.  The walk seemed a little longer than we thought, but the views were great.   The rain held off and we arrived at the Tower of London at 9:01AM just as the first group was entering.

We followed or plan and headed over to the crown jewels exhibit, elbowed past a few of the slower visitors and arrived at the exhibit with very few people already in line.  The crown jewels were magnificent and exactly as you would expect.  Jody was realy impressed with the craftsmanship as some of the displays dated back as far as the 11^th century.  There was a lot of gold, and some enormous jewels and we both enjoyed the exhibit very much.  After the crown jewels, we decided to do  the Yeoman Warders “Beefeater” tour.  The kings personal bodyguards and called Yeoman Warders and were nicknamed “Beefeater” many years back because being the bodyguards of the king, they would eat the same food as the Royals.  This meant that they would be eating beef when many of the local townspeople were not.

By now the rain was beginning, and so the Beefeater tour was moved indoors to the Royal Chapel.  Our  Beefeater was a riot with a really loud voice and a larger than life personality, he told us stories of the life of a Beefeater.  They actually live on the grounds of the Tower of London along with their families, and rarely leave the grounds, and never without the permission of the king.  This finished the more structured portions of the visit, and we were now left to explore the grounds on our own which was a blast.  The original main building or the “White Tower” dates back to the 11^th century and is still in great shape,  There were displays of the old kings residence , and remnants of the wild animal displays before they were all transferred to the London Zoo.  

The Tower of London has a reputation of torture and inhumane prison conditions, and executions.  And while we did se some of the torture devices, there were very few people actualyl executed inside the tower of London as it was required that the prisoner be of “noble birth”  to be executed in the Tower itself, so only a handful of noblemen were executed in the Tower of London while most were executed outside of the tower on a location known from the execution of commoners.

We wandered around the rest of the tower and saw most of what was available and figured out it was about noon and we had better head back to the hotel to change for our visit to the theatre to see Hamilton.  Just as we decided to leave, the sky opened up and the downpour began.  We had planned to visit the tower gift shop, but the same police presence for the kings birthday was blocking the way  leaving us searching for cover from the rain.  Eventually the rain subsided and we made our way to the Tower Hill Underground Station, 5 minutes away.  15 minutes and several stops later, we found ourselves back at our hotel with plenty of time to spare.

While waiting to head over to Hamilton, I decided to check back on the status of our lost luggage, and there was good news!  It turns out that American Airlines had already been working on the problem and that our bags had reached London this morning.  Of course they had been on separate flights, with one bag reaching London by way of Dallas/ Ft Worth, and the other by way of Chicago.   But no matter, both bags had been claimed by British Air, and turned over to a courier service  for delivery to our hotel.  We were hoping for delivery later today, but I contacted the courier service and their process is to pick up bags from the airports, take them to their warehouse  and depending where they are going, figure out an efficient route for delivery.  Our bags arrived too late in the day to be added to todays routes, but they will be added to tomorrows deliveries.  They will contact us with a delivery window tomorrow, but we do not need to be present to receive them and the concierge will have them sent to our room if we are out.  So with any luck our lost baggage drama will be behind us tomorrow.

Back at the room, we were getting ready for Hamilton.  Since we didn’t have a change of jeans, we had to use the hotel hair dryer to dry them out from the rain.  It worked surprisingly well, and we were mostly dry by the time we were ready to go.  We really weren’t sure what to expect from Hamilton, we just knew that people had been raving about it for years.   So before we left, we realized we would be staying in the theatre district, and there might be a possibility of seeing a play while we were here.  There are two theatres right next to the hotel, and the one was the Victoria Palace Theatre which was showing Hamilton, and the other was the Apollo Victoria Theatre showing Wicked.  We already saw Wicked in Boston several years ago, and besides we always wanted to see Hamilton.  Imagine my surprise that we could still book tickets only a couple of weeks before the show, so we picked the Saturday matinee. 

After seeing Hamilton, we now understand what the hype was all about.  It was really one of the best plays we have ever seen, certainly the most imaginative.  Everything about it was amazing and the cast for this production was the highest quality.  It lasted 2:45 including a short intermission, but it was so good the time just flew past.  All of a sudden it was over, and we found ourselves hungry for dinner.

A visit to London wouldn’t be complete without a visit to a pub for some fish ‘n chips.   So right after the theatre we headed for the Shakespeare Pub and had a delicious serving of fish ‘n chips, though we skipped the mushy peas.  It was delicious!

I was hoping to work on the blog tonight, but without an American plug adapter and a dead laptop, there didn’t seem to be much hope.  I checked at the local convenience store and the did have one, but it was about $60, and I couldn’t bring myself to spend that much knowing I would get 2 of them in my suitcase tomorrow.  Suddenly, it dawned on me that the hotel front desk may have one I could borrow, and sure enough they did and my laptop is back, fully charged!

Tomorrow is Sunday and we have tickets for the British Museum at 10:40AM.  This should give us time for a leisurely breakfast, before walking the 2 miles to get there.  Weather is supposed to be good tomorrow, and we don’t want to rush our way through.  Hopefully we will find our lost bags waiting for us in the room when we return!