Hi, I am newish here and am enjoying it so far, have read some great reviews. I am having trouble fi...
Hi, I am newish here and am enjoying it so far, have read some great reviews. I am having trouble finding who has rated my reviews at the moment so apologies for anyone I haven't rated back.
Member since:19.02.2006
Reviews:41
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As we live in London there is luckilly quite a lot for us to do. We decided we would go and see one of the tourist attractions even though we knew it being a bank holiday, wherever we went would be packed. We decided after a bit of thought that we would try the Tower Of London this time as I haven't been there for years and boyfriend never had visited.
To get to the Tower Of London is fairly easy. We travelled on the tube, which is on the circle and district lines. The tube station is just across the road from the main attraction so it was easy to spot and there are signs also in the tube station to tell you the right exit. It would also be easy to get to by bus. I would not recommend that anyone would try and drive there as you would certainly have a problem trying to park.
The ticket offices are fairly obvious once you get there. There were only reasonably small queues which was good considering it was very busy overall. The ticket prices are reasonable for a London attraction. It was 17 pounds for an adult and about ten pounds for a child. They also had concessions for students and over 60's. If you are a tax payer you also can give gift aid and if you do that they give you a form so you can come free for the rest of the year, which
is good especially if you live fairly near like we do.
Once you have purchased tickets you can also walk round to the entrance. Also outside the entrance is the welcome centre and also a shop. The welcome centre is where you need to go to hand in your form to get free access for a year. They also deal with memberships etc there. The shop we didn't go in but I believe it sells various souvenirs.
At the main gate you hand in your ticket and then they check yoour bags as obviosuly with all attractions they need to have good security. Once through the gates you are free to visit which ever parts of the attraction that you want to. There are tours that are offered. We didn't go on one ourselves but we saw a few that were walking around. These were led by the Yeoman Wardens who take you on a 60 minute tour around the grounds. These sounded very interesting and they tell you lots of stories about the kings and queens and all the people that were kept prisoner there. The Yeoman Wardens were very animated and seemed to keep the crowd enetertained. On this occasion we chose to walk round ourself but I would be interested to follow this tour another time.
There are various parts to the attraction. These include the Medieval Palace, which used to be a luxurious home and also has been a fortress. This includes replicas of some of the furniture and is quite interesting to see. There are various towers around the outside that you can go into. These are quite interesting as you can see all the inscriptions that the prisoners made into the walls when they were kept prisoner. It is also quite interesting to see how some prisoners had a much better time than others. There are some interesting mystery stories as well about missing members of the royal families of the past.
In the centre of the grounds was the White Tower. This at the moment has got the Armouries collection including the of Henry VIII. This is quite a large exhibition and you end up walking up and down stairs a lot. Ther e is a fair bit to see though and it was fascinating to learn more about the armour they wore.
Another main feature is the Crown Jewels, We had to queue up outside this one for a while, although the queue did move fairly quickly. Once you are inside you have to queue again for a while but then there are videos on the screen showing the Queens Coronation and pictures of the various jewels. Then you go through into the vault. There are moving walkways which you can stand on and look at all the main jewels. They are really stunning, so it is defitely worth a look but it doesn't take long to see them all once you are in there.
Another interetsing sight is that of the Ravens, these are really big and interesting to watch. We saw their keeper feed them eggs and was a little scary watching them eat them! It does warn you that they can bite.
A couple of times a day they do a show where they show how they use a big weapon. This was quite fun to watch and they got audience participation by getting people to come up and help pull the strings to shoot the weapon. It was only water baloons but was fun to watch. The two men doing the show put a lot of effort in and made it quite funny.
There is a restaurant and a cafe there so if you are hungry you can get something to eat. There are also a few places just outside if you don't fancy eating in there. The cafe and restaurant have got coffees, sandwhiches, salads and hot meals etc so there would be something for everyone. If you have got a picnic there were lots of benches that you would be able to eat these on.
Apart from the shop outside the main entrance there were also a few shops inside selling items.
I would say that the exhibitions all involve lots of stairs so anyone who has any problems with these might not want to choose this attraction. There are also a few parts where pushchairs need to be left outside. This would obviously mean carrying babies and small children so may be a little hard work.
Overall I found it an enjoyable place to go. We were only there for around 3 hours but you could probably make a whole day of it. I would prefer to go when it is a little quieter so that you can see a bit more but i would definitely visit again.
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I visited it about 20 years ago. Would love to go again also. A great read!
paulpry118 31.10.2009 22:33
I visited years ago when I lived in Essex. However I want to go back again as earlier this year I found out my Great Great Grandfather worked as a carpenter within the tower. We have also recently found some dolls furniture he made whilst he worked in the tower out of gun butts used in the crimean war
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Oct 30th, 2009
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