My name is Matt Maybon. It is my third year at St. Scholastica, and I will be a senior in the fall. I am a computer science major with a communications minor. My previous travel experiences include Australia two summers ago, and New York City last summer. Both these experiences have greatly helped prepare for London.
Today we started with a
coach bus tour around London. The highlights of the tour included seeing Big
Ben (which actually refers to the bell, not the clock tower itself and seen in
the picture below), Westminster Abbey, and Buckingham Palace.
We then stopped the tour
and went to go inside the Tower of London. The tower goes way back in British
history, with kings constructing different parts of it throughout the years. It
had many different uses, one of them being to keep prisoners The tour of the
tower was focused on five main areas. One interesting area was the medieval
palace. It was home to many meetings of kings and hosted their chambers on
occasion. Another interesting area was the imprisonment and execution areas. A
fair amount of prisoners were convicted for political reasons, usually traitors
to England. Most prisoners were executed outside the buildings, held as public
events. On occasion, they would execute them inside. Some stories of the
prisoners held captive were heartbreaking, others more adventurous with them
escaping. One last area that was of interest was the Crown Jewels. As kings and
queens are to be crowned throughout British history, their attire is made with
magnificent jewels. Their rings, cloaks, and crowns were all decorated with
expensive jewels, and displayed throughout the museum. Unfortunately, this part
of the Tower did not allow pictures inside, so I have included one of the outside
of the building. Overall this was a wonderful and eye-opening trip that delved
into the twisted past of London.
Matt,
ReplyDelete1. I totally thought we were in the same grade.
2. I mistakenly G+1'ed this before I made this legitimate comment.
3. I too enjoyed the tower of London. Time swept by quite quickly. It would be all too easy to spend 3+ hours at the location.
Hi Matt! I thought the fact that the Tower of London held most executions outside was very interesting and I'm glad you included it in your post! Seems sort of cruel that they would make such a spectacle of executions, but then I think that really says a lot about the time period. I thought the history of the Tower of London was amazing! Like you said, it goes way back in British history! In America, our history doesn't go back very far at all in comparison. I also thought this day was a good look into the past of London in general which inevitably helps us better understand its current culture!
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