Londontown - Part Three

Friday, June 28th

Day two of our London Pass. We begin with St. Paul's Cathedral - again, we are not allowed to take photographs inside but we did ascend the stairs to the top and take pictures from the top. Unfortunately, it was a rainy day otherwise the view would have been spectacular - as it is, we did have a good look around.

Inside, it is very beautiful. We had audioguides here as well, and they did something really brilliant: they used iPods, so it could play videos as well. Unlike Westminster Abbey, there was no set path - you could just wander through at your own choice and listen to selected tapes as they were presented. The Dome is beautifully painted; actually, each area has intricate designs in the ceiling, and nothing is left plain.
One feature I liked was the memorial statue of John Donne, who was a poet and dean of the church. He is most known for the quotes "No man is an island" and "For whom the bell tolls". He posed for his own memorial statue, which has himself wrapped in a burial shroud. Florence Nightingale, Sir Alexander Fleming (one of the discoverers of Penicillin) and T.E. Lawrence (i.e., of Arabia) are also remembered in this church. For Canadian excitement, there was a memorial bust of John A. Macdonald, Canada's first prime minister.

The next stop was Shakespeare's Globe Theatre. It's not the original building, but a reconstruction set near the original grounds. Unfortunately, we were too late to join a tour of the theatre itself, but we were able to look around the small museum, which describes the times of Shakespeare, and the process of putting on a show at that time. We did get to join a different tour, a small walking tour with a woman who discussed what things were like in that period, and various peoples and buildings around. She was really amazing, very interactive and demonstrative. She took us in to see the Rose theatre, another one that was around at Shakespeare's time, and here we could see the remains of the original.

Next, we wandered over to the Tower Bridge, an iconic London landmark. There was an exhibition inside about the building of the bridge (which is of the type that opens up to let boats pass) and also had information about famous bridges around the world. It was not the most exciting sight we visited, and the view was okay, but not as good as St. Paul's - plus, Tower Bridge's walkway is behind glass, which sort of obscures your efforts. The engine room was pretty interesting to see, just the sheer massive scale of the equipment involved in opening the bridge.

We didn't have much time for anything else, so we decided to use the remainder of our London Pass on the City Cruise, which would take us back to Westminster. It was a nice little boat trip, and there were occasional announcements regarding some of the sights along the river.