God Save the Queen

One thing I (Brandi*) really loved about London was that there was some super real castles. Like when you think of a castle or palace – this stuff was for real. Moats, bricks, towers to shoot people from, places where traitors were killed and JEWELS – the Tower of London had all of this and more!

Tower of London (The moat separates where we were standing here and the castle)

This was as close as we got to a guard!  

This place was built in 1066 and since they has served as an armoury, a treasury, a menagerie (fancy word for a place to keep exotic animals), home of the Royal Mint and home of the royal bling aka the Crown Jewels! (thanks Wikipedia for the refresher).

Brady with some armory

Tower Bridge from the Tower of London

Inside the castle grounds

Some facts about this castle:

·         Over a 400-year period, 112 executions were held here.

·         One of the most famous beheading was that of Anne Boleyn. I’m sure you’ve heard of her name, but if you want the full history, visit my friends at Wikipedia

·         Legend says that the palace will fall if the ravens leave the ground. So some ravens live here with clipped wings. As a Steelers fan, I booed them.

Beefeater

We weren’t allowed to snap pics of the Crown Jewels (and our guide suggested that women not compare their wedding ring to the bling either lol). But seriously – I’ve never seen anything like this in my life! There were some serious diamond in these cases. I read a fact that there are 23,578 jewels in the house. The most impressive is the Imperial State Crown, which contains 2,868 diamonds, 273 pearls, 17 sapphires, 11 emeralds and five rubies. Wow.

After touring the castle, we made another pilgrimage. This one was a bit cheesy and some of you “muggles” just won’t appreciate this. Our last tourist stop was…Platform 9 and ¾ at Kings Cross Station.

You don’t get it, do you? That’s because this stop is special to us Wizards aka Harry Potter fans. This is where Harry and his friends went to get the train to Hogwarts. They pushed their carts of school supplies through the wall and off to the famous wizarding school.

So many people have gone to visit this spot that they made a little photo opp outside the station where we totally had to snap a pic.

On Saturday night we dined a delicious new Gordon Ramsey hot spot called the Bread Street Kitchen (located on Bread Street). A yummy way to end our sweet trip!