Tower of London and St. Paul’s Cathedral

First stop today (5/19) was the Tower of London. We listened to the Yeomen Warden and learned all sorts of interesting facts. For example he does live on the premises but still has to pay rent because all members of the royal household, save the queen, have to pay a percentage of their income in rent. We also learned which queens were beheaded there and others who were imprisoned and/or tortured there (e.g., Sir Walter Raleigh). My mom said there was a good PBS program that talked about the Tower and the evidence as whether the two princes that were held there actually died there.

Next we walked along the Thames down to St. Paul’s Cathedral. We sprang for the cathedral tour before evensong. I somehow convinced David to climb the 520 steps up to the top of the dome. Amazing views, but it was a lot of circular steps (not to mention the 250+ steps at the Tower earlier in the day). Thus we climbed 1300+ steps that day! David thinks I’m trying to kill him!

Evensong was interesting again. The same but different from the others. Same format, but a little less formal with the seating. We got to sit in the Quire but it actually made the service a bit disjointed because the choir and organ were more directed toward the nave so we were behind them which distorted the sound dome. The choir was all male with counter-tenors. They were very strong voiced (only 12 but they filled the cathedral). We heard the organist practicing for Sunday during our earlier tour, so David was happy to hear more organ snippets. We still liked the format and inclusiveness of Westminster the best and the choir from King’s College obviously can’t really be topped. This is our last London evensong but we will be in Canterbury on Sunday. Tomorrow it’s supposed to rain so that will be our museum day.