Brighton, Pimlico and the Tower of London.

Monday the 31st Leanne had off for the bank holiday, we had hoped to go away some place but could not find someone to watch the dog and cat. We ended up going to three different places each of the three day. Saturday was Brighton, a sea side town on the English channel.
The train stations are always something to see, very beautiful and ornate.

As we walked down to the water we passed narrow alleys

many shops 

and a few pubs along the way

 this shop was only about as deep as it was wide.

There was a large pier with amusement park at the end of it, we didn't care fore any amusement so we passed on going. We did walk along the beach for a bit. Just like Dover is was very stony and 

hard to walk on, i would say harder than sand. There were no stone castles, there was a sand castle near the walk way but the guy brought his own sand. 

One of there claim to fame is the Volks Electric Railway that is the oldest electric railroad in the world. Its very small and is like a ride at an amusement park. 

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volk%27s_Electric_Railway

There were about 4 cars and each one held about 20 people.

The train took us to Marina were we ended our day wait a few cold pints.

On Sunday we went for a 2 mile walk around the neighborhood of Pimloco, just south of Westminster Abby. Another area with lots of history, people that have lived here were Sir Winston Churchill and Sir Lawrence Olivier.

This pictures shows an area that was bombed during the second world war. The house in the center  that is darker than the rest is one that was replaced after it was bombed.

Monday we decided to go to the Tower of London.

 http://www.hrp.org.uk/TowerOfLondon/

The Tower is another one of the many castles in England, this one is where the crown jewels are stored. As we walked around i kept thinking it was part of Disney world. Very storybook like in appearance. There were two walls that surrounded the Tow  The grass you see used to be filled with water,  

 We are standing on the old (inner) wall and the River Thames used to come right up to it. About 600 years ago one of the kings decide to add another wall to make it safer. That is the one you see between where we are standing and the river.  They had to add pilings into the ground and add fill before they even started the wall. A huge task for that long ago, i guess its good to be king.
 Tower bridge  is in the distance it was built from 1886 -1894   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tower_Bridge

One of the entry ways from the inner wall, note the gate that is up and the large doors.

On the opposite side was the Thames river entry way in the outer wall. Below the arch about 15 feet  is were the Kings barge would be. There is another gate and doors in the back of the arch.

This is the kings chamber in the Medieval palace 

 After checking out the kings chamber we walked thru the White Tower. The White Tower is acually a huge building that sits in the middle of everything. It is the oldest building there, being built over 1,000 years ago. Everything was massive, it's a three story building, each floor was at least 15 feet tall to 20 feet tall and the walls are at least 8 feet thick.This building is over 1,000 years old and now houses suits of armor from past kings and there horses, other armaments.
There was also the block and ax used to execute prisoners and Henry the VIII  wives . Off with there head!

This building is where the crown jewels are held. You walk takes you into a vault where they are held. Along with the jewels there is a lot of silver and gold utensils. I know that one was the royal baptismal font, it was very ornate. We couldn't take any pictures of them but i will say, to look at crowns they don't look real. There are so many jewels on the crowns it looks like part of a costume you would buy for Halloween. A diamond on one crown was 105 carets, another diamond on a scepter was 500, they looked like big icecubes. Leanne and i went thru the line 4 times just to look at them again. 

The changing of the guards outside the building with the crown jewels. I kept thinking about the Wizard of Oz when they walked by. 

Another guard outside of the Queens house and one of the ravens.

History is that if there are less than 6 ravens at the tower the kingdom will fall. They have a person that takes care of the ravens and also makes sure there is always at least two spare ravens .

It was a great visit and i'm sure we will go back there again.