London, England

We arrived early in the morning and checked into our AirBnB as I had booked it for the day before. We needed space to drop our bags, nap, and see the sites. It took us three days before our bodies had switched to European time.

Our first venture out was to the Victoria and Albert Museum. Several years ago, we watched the mini series “Victoria" and it was fascinating how this all came together. The museum was amazing and so big, we had to pick only certain things we wanted to see.

This is the St Margaret Alterpiece, telling her story. She was martyred for refusing to renounce Christianty. It was common practice for many craftsmen to work together to create such large masterpieces, otherwise it would take years to complete.

These two pillars are three stories high and were all hand carved. You can see a man standing in the left corner to give you some idea of size. The black boxes are carved crypts. This was a beautiful display of intricate craftsmanship.

The Tower Bridge was built in 1894 and is still the original bridge and fully functional today. It is noted, this bridge never “fell down”. The London Bridge however is a more modern bridge, with the original bridge moved to Lake Havasu City, Arizona. We have traversed the original bridge, several times.

The London Tower Castle was built in 1078 AD and became a prison as well as the royal residence. We took a tour with a Beefeater and the history of this majestic place was frightening, sad, and fascinating. It was more about murder, deception and mahem than anything else. Most notorious was King Henry VIII who killed two of his six wives. The ways of the old days are not the ways of today, thankfully.