Three - Christmas and New Year in London 2007.

A traditional UK postcard you see is the Tower Bridge. If you have seen Tom Hank's portrayal of Robert Langdon in the movie The Da Vinci Code, you will see well almost completely the bridge when he and his leading lady partner were in the black cab passing it. Another famous landmark of UK aside from Big Ben and the bridge is the Tower of London. This castle, home to the royalties and prisoners centuries ago still stands in central London, a few steps away from the Tower Bridge. Pangga and I visited the historical place which was swarmed by tourists lining up in queues. Luckily my genius gorgeous gf purchased us London Pass cards. Yup, having this card put us in a fast track lane. The tower has a moat around it as seen below and during winters, they turn this into a skating rink for kids to enjoy.

As we stepped on the cobbled stones inside the castle, a stray fox greeted us, scared from the crowd of people going in and out from the main gate.

Fox snot :D

The castle has towers within its huge walls. The Bloody Tower (pangga's favorite) where they house the prisoners and a place of execution, White Tower where the royalties stay and the Green Tower where they torture the prisoners. Most of the prisoners executed were of royal blood, Anne Boleyn was one.

Royal pose from one of the actresses

The Tower Bridge view from the Tower of London

The attractions that I liked most was the armory. Being fond of knights, the armor they wear and weapons they wield have always fascinated me. The armory was full of the breastplates worn by each king. Also on the display were the armors worn by each champion horse of each king. I have also known that the lance used for jousting weighs 20 lbs. No wonder in movies knights have difficulty in carrying them and once it hits the other knight, it has a tremendous impact. The different types of weapon were on the wall from morning stars, scythe and swords. It is amazing how they invented these weapons. The wielder must also have the physical strength to use them.

Inside the armory

The other armory however was a restaurant. It is a typical restaurant and nothing special about it. Rather than fish and chips (British de facto meal), we had for ourselves burger and fries (American counterpart).

It was almost 6 in the evening when we were almost done except for the jewel house of the queen. We have decided to skip it since the queue to that attraction was half kilometer.