The Best Part of London: Touring The Tower of London

Our second day in London was by far my favorite! It was still in the middle of a sweaty heat wave and all, but it didn’t matter. Touring the ancient Tower of London was literally a dream come true for me.

I booked these tickets over a month in advance to make sure we wouldn’t miss out. We had 11-1130 timed entry tickets for our family. You can go here to book tickets.

What made the Tower of London such a must see for me? So many reasons!!

#1. It is the oldest castle inside the city of London.

Windsor Castle is older, but it is outside of the city. This one is smack dab in the middle.

#2. The Tower of London has a past filled with tragic stories. Few ghost tours anywhere could boast more tales of historic significance than this place.

The history is why I picked this particular castle to tour. It is one of the many fortresses constructed by William the Conqueror’s Norman invasion. This castle never fell into complete neglect. This place has always been nationally important to England. It is one of the Great Britain’s most famous symbols of power.

The Princes in the Tower is the story foremost in my mind when I think of the Tower. It is such an unfair, sad story. Basically, the heir to the throne and his brother were locked in the Bloody Tower of the Tower of London way back in 1483, by their uncle, Richard, the Duke of Gloucester. He was supposed to be taking care of the boys. Instead, he locked them up for “their protection.” Then he took the throne for himself, becoming King Richard III.

King Richard only ruled for two years before he was killed in the Battle of Bosworth by King Henry VII’s forces. Richard was the last Plantagenet king.

#3. Queen Elizabeth I was even held prisoner in the Tower, when her older sister, Mary, was Queen of England.

Actually, many monarchs have lived, had their coronation, or been imprisoned in the Tower of London.

#4. The Crown Jewels are kept and displayed here.

Photographs are not allowed in there, or you know I would be happy to share those. We did go in there. The line was not bad at all. We saw tiaras and crowns, scepters, and robes. It was definitely worth touring!

#5. The Tower was a military base during both World Wars.

This castle is SO RICH in history!!

We took the train from our hotel to the castle. As soon as we walked up from the railway, we could see the Tower of London. It was much larger than I expected. It is located on the River Thames, and it is surrounded by a vibrant area chock full of food trucks and ferries coming and going.

I told Alan, “If we ever come to London again, let’s stay here, in this area. I love the atmosphere.”

The old cobblestone road is still in place, but these newer tiles also supply a more comfortable place to walk. Cobblestone is no best friend to plantar fasciitis.

We had to walk all the way around to get to the tour entrance. I didn’t mind though, as there was so much to see. In the mornings, my feet were okay. By the end of each day, I could barely walk, especially day two, but that has more to do with our Prime Meridian adventure, which I’ll save for a future post.

JD kept us entertained, walking down these streets doing his best impersonation of a (NPC- non playable character) video game character walk. It is hilarious. We took videos, but I won’t embarrass him by posting them here. Although, he probably wouldn’t care.

Outside those walls, there used to be a moat, but they drained its stagnant waters to combat disease, back in the 1840s.

As it turns out, exploring castles and ancient fortresses, towers, and city walls is the PERFECT vacation for a family of energetic young men.

We visited several places like this, and they did love it. Now, the our Smallest Who of All still managed to complain a good bit. He received several reprimands about griping throughout the day.

I will say though, even our youngest never ran his mouth when we were strolling along a centuries old fortress wall or gazing at displays of knights and swords. Those things were popular with even our hardest to please boys.

In fact, even though this was all my idea, I was the one who got bored first in the White Tower. The White Tower is the central part of the fortress. It is the building inside the walls that you see on your souvenirs.

Why would I get bored in the White Tower?

Well, it was almost the last thing we toured that day, so I was tired. Plus, it was filled to the brim with armor and weaponry. It is basically a medieval knight and armory museum. Obviously, that was more appealing to everyone else in my group. I thought I was never going to get Caleb and Alan out of there.

We actually started out in the courtyard. Overwhelmed with all of the options, we started in the closest part of the walls to where we happened to be standing, which I believe was the Salt Tower and the Wall Walk.

There is so much to tour in the Tower of London, we did not get to all of it!

The fortress walls are like a whole castle in themselves. It is enormous.

Workers at the Tower, such as the Yeoman Warders do live here.

In fact, the Yeoman Warders offer guided tours around the Tower, included in your admission ticket. When we have little boys in tow, we know we cannot handle a guided tour. We always have to do a self-guided option. I’m sure we learn less, but we enjoy the freedom to goof off and move at our own pace.

Throughout the many towers along the walls, there are displays like the one above.

The photo above is a good miniature of the Tower, though I’m not sure in which time period. It looks like it does not include the Jewel Tower, where the crown jewels are kept. Speaking of which, that was our next stop after walking a good amount of the walls and the outeer towers.

That’s me, excitedly waiting in line to see the Crown Jewels.

We became two groups in there, a faster group, and then Alan and Caleb. The little boys and I waited at the end, and I did notice they did not utter one grunt of complaint about going through the Crown Jewels building. Every single person in the group respected that this was a remarkable thing to see.

The boys were hungry though, and beginning to ask for this and that to eat and drink, so we went to lunch at the cafe inside the Tower grounds.

The cafe had burgers, fish and chips, as well as some gluten free offerings, so there was something for everyone. I had a fluffy little gluten free cake with my lunch, so I think I left happiest of all.

Every day I did keep my eyes out for some gluten free fish ‘n chips. No luck yet on days one or two.

After lunch, it was on to the White Tower.

There must be many cold months in England, because we saw these radiators everywhere. Air conditioning was rare though..

I have noticed they do not admit to loving it. But the thing is, I was the only one who walked through it in two minutes and spent twenty minutes waiting at the other end of the room for the rest of them to finish looking and reading about it all.

Now that I do find interesting. Does that make me morbid?

I thought the sword exhibit was astonishing, for the history to be so well preserved!

This is the oldest surviving artwork of the Tower, dating back to the 1400s.

So if you ever need some metal armor, like a medieval Knight would wear, I know where we can find gobs of it. Haaa!!!

My favorite part of the White Tower’s exhibits was actually this:

In the last room we toured of the White Tower, we found this! It was a room full of interactive exhibits, and I was way too tired to do any of them other than the photo station. I took some photos and waited on the bench for everyone else to finish.

We also thoroughly enjoyed the gift shop! It’s a miracle we made it out of there with only buying that Christmas ornament I’m holding in the photo. They had the best gift shop, full of medieval weapon replicas, royal robes and crowns, etc. We were so entertained. Alan had to drag us out of there.

I knew our time was running short, and we were not going to have time to see all of the things, so I made it my mission to find the Bloody Tower.

That’s where the exhibit was on the Princes in the Tower, which I mentioned at the beginning of this post.

The Bloody Tower starts out with a large display about Sir Walter Raleigh, who was imprisoned here with his family.

The Bloody Tower also contains this still working portcullis, which keeps people in or out of the Tower.

The boys had never heard the story of the Princes in the Tower, and there is a film in the tower that tells the story well. A child’s voice is used to tell the story, while a video to go along with it is projected on the wall. It all has a hauntingly, moving, sad effect on the listener.

Towards the end of our time, we saw a little street theatre going on too, which we enjoyed.

All in all, this was my favorite London outing. I highly recommend taking a tour of this impressive, historic fortress!

For more on our London trip, you can find day one: Buckingham Palace, here.