Caitlin Olmstead

Well.... We are finally in London!!! A week and a half of England's "smaller" cities and we are in the biggest of them all! The journey here was full of trains and close calls with slamming subway doors, but we made it to the beautiful London Lodges Hotel. After a nice afternoon at the British Museum and then a peaceful night, we were up and ready to explore what London had to offer!
First up on our day in the city was St. Paul's Cathedral. Redesigned by Sir Christopher Wren after multiple fires in London, it is now the famous domed cathedral known to many. A couple of us brave souls climbed the 528 spiral and narrow steps up to the top of the dome, to the Golden Gallery. Here, we could see all of London spread out before us. There were old buildings mixed with new, history mixed with the future. It was amazing to see, and definitely worth the walk!!
We then made our way to the Museum of London and saw England as it was in pre-historic times, surrounded by marshes and hippos; to London as it was after the Great Fire in 1666. It was so interesting to see the changes made, especially having just seen it from the top of a cathedral!
But then we made our way to my favorite place of all, the Tower of London. As someone who has always been absorbed in the history of the Tudor family in England, going here was like a little kid going to Disneyland. There was the suit and armor of Henry VIII, the site where he beheaded two of his six wives. There were torture chambers, prison cells, hospitals. Crown Jewels and moats. Anything and everything you could have hoped for in a fortress. Henry VIII has always been a person of legend to me, someone to be learned about from afar. I mean, how many men these days are most remembered for how many wives they had?? But to walk the paths that he would have walked, where so many people of history had walked, it's a dream come true.
It's only been a day, and London has already amazed me. I am sure there is more out there to discover and see, but for now, I am one happy traveller.