One Hundred Dollars a Month

Yesterday The Girl and I visited the Tower of London.

The Tower of London began it’s history in the 1080’s when William the Conqueror began building a fortress on the sight to protect his throne.  The Tower of London was added to throughout the years and evolved to be used as the famous ‘prison’ we know it as today.  Funny we go to visit it, when throughout history, most of it’s visitors would’ve done anything to get out of it.

There are 6 Ravens that guard the Tower of London {plus a 7th, now, for good measure}.  Legend says the Tower will fall if they ever leave.

They are fed daily by a Ravenmaster.  And, apparently, they can get a little feisty {they must take their job very seriously – ha!} so you are not supposed to try to get too close.

The Yeoman Warders give tours inside the Tour of London.  They are also known as the “beef-eaters”, apparently, because when they served the King, they were allowed to eat their fill of beef while at the King’s table.  Now, to become a Yeoman Warder, they had to have served in the armed forces.

We stood in line to see the Crown Jewels for 45 minutes only to discover we could not take pictures of the jewels! Boooo. I wanted to show you Queen Mary’s crown {our favorite}.

In case you didn’t know, the Crown Jewels is where the monarchy now displays their most valuable jewels and former monarchy crowns.  {Holy buckets, can you imagine needing a whole building, instead of just a jewelry box?!}

You can also see 500 years of armor in the Fit for a King exhibit, but because we only had 2 hours to look around we missed it.

The Ceremony of the Keys happens everyday.  It is the official locking of the Tower of London.  It is both ceremonial and practical–because of the Crown Jewels, security is no joke here. The vault doors were awesome!

If ever in London, The Tower of London is a must see.

Peace Out Girl Scouts,

We are off to do some more exploring.

~Mavis