My UK Trip - Day 2 Wed, Feb 28

At an early morning breakfast, I had a chance meeting with Clare (Susan, my friend Laura's friend) about some contacts she might have for the hub night concept. We finished our gruel (dry oatmeal with milk) and I took off for the underground tubes to meet up with other tourists for our first full-day London Walks tour led by Helena. We met across the street from Big Ben, the clock inside a towering clock tower near the River Thames. I met several others on the walk including Sylvia (a woman from Ontario), Elena (South Africa), a Norwegian couple who lamented their countries' poor Olympic performance this year, two US women and a man from California.

We started with Big Ben, the clock controlled by a bell named Big Ben after a man whose wife thought the bell looked like him--he was rather large. The 13 ton bell is timed in the Fall and Winter with the seasonal change by dropping pence on a scale in the tower--adding 3 pence is equal to adding a 1/4 of a second to the clock. We moved on to see the Houses of Parliament across from a large statue of Winston Churchill, instrumental for his role as Prime Minister in World War II. An Oliver Cromwell statue also stood in front of the House of Lords along with a statue of King Richard the Lionhearted on horseback, the man responsible for the military activity of the crown during the Second Crusade. We paused to view Westminster Abbey and learned stories of the many royal weddings and coronations conducted there. Crossing through St. James Park we stalled to watch the procession of the guards, Scots from one end of the park, English from the other to meet in the middle in front of Buckingham Palace. We then entered Green Park, touted as the most romantic park on earth. Queen Victoria became so red with envy at the antics of her cheating spouse when he would pick flowers from the park to woo his many mistresses that she had all the flowers in the park uprooted. Some of the trees in the park are 400 years old. We paused to watch the changing of the guard outside St. James' Palace and then headed to Picadilly Square and the subsequent theatre district, home of the famous Odeon Cinema. After a quick lunch in the crypt beneath St. Mark's Cathedral, we passed into Trafalgar Square under the gaze of a Lord Admiral Nelson statue and the friendly lions, named so after their sculptor couldn't get the paws right and stopped short leaving a resemblance to the paws of domestic house pets. A walk away from Trafalgar led us past monuments to fallen WWII soldiers, a monument to the women of WWII (who consequently built one of the famous bridges across the River Thames), the National Defense building, and arrived at a river ride. The day finished off with the great Tower of London, home of the now musuem castle that has been built on the land since the early part of the twelfth century. We toured the Traitor's Gate where men were sent before their heads were lopped off, heard stories of the pigeons that were required by royal law to always be on the premises (avian bird flu or no bird flu), the center tower itself with royal weapon displays, knights' armour, and other displays. We finished with the Crown Jewels of London. Noticing the time, I hurried back to the depot to catch a train and a late departure from London to my next destination, Swindon, an hour south of London central and friend's Laura, husband Rob (member of the Royal Air Force) and their two dogs Rhett and Biggles.