I am doing this from memory, as I wasn’t on the ball enough to write this when we toured the tower last weekend? Could have been the weekend before…

We headed off to the Tower of London, as all good tourists do. It is a building of immense history. I think this one building has more history than all of New Zealand. It stretches back to 1078 AD. The building as it stands today, is effectively completely original, obviously each monarch and ruler throughout history has added their own tower, extra wall, moat, extra bedroom for the family…

Our trip started with an hour guided tour by one of the local Beefeaters (pictured left). They are members of the royal guard, but double as tour guides at the Tower of London, he was a fantastic speaker and gave us such in a good history of the site (not that I can remember all that much now). From the be-headings, traitors, builders, royals, and much more

The crows are very menacing, back in the day, one of the kings was told that if the crows left the Tower of London, that this families reign would fall. He made it law that there will be at least 6 crows on site at all times. It is still law. So they clip some pet crows’ wings to keep them about. There are signs all of the place telling people not to get to close as they will take a finger if given the chance.

What I didn’t realise before going was that there was a large museum inside the site. This is very interesting and obviously focuses on the Towers history. There are also the previous kings and queens family Jewels. ‘The family jewels’ as you know them are the gear of the current monarchs, but some of the previous crowns, jewels, sceptres etc are housed and displayed at the Tower. No photos allowed =(

On the whole, it a very worth while place to see. The amount of history is very overwhelming, especially when you are reading the words craved into the stone walls over 500 years ago by rival royal family members being kept in the prison towers to rot. We were even treated to a demonstration of old school fighting.