Tuesday, September 3, 2024 – St. Paul’s Cathedral and the Tower of London

Travel Blog 2 Minutes
The first stop on our tour today was St. Paul’s Cathedral.

At the entrance to this church is a marble baptismal font the size of a backyard swimming pool and a number of monuments to famous Britons.

This is a monument to the Duke of Wellington. He is riding his favorite horse Copenhagen.
This is a monument to Admiral Nelson.
Christopher Wren was the architect of this cathedral and built it in the baroque style of the grand Italian Catholic churches. When Wren finished his masterpiece the Church of England clergy thought that the ornate baroque style of St. Paul’s was not the best fit for future Church of England churches. Thereafter, Church of England churches would be austere and angular. I happen to like ornate and baroque as opposed to austere and angular.
View from the altar looking through the choir stalls.
The choir stalls.
This is a memorial to the American servicemen and servicewomen who died during World War Two.

Hundreds of famous Britons are buried in the basement of St. Paul’s.

The Duke of Wellington’s sarcophagus.
Admiral Nelson’s sarcophagus.

After we finished our tour of St. Paul’s we walked over to the Sky Garden.

Sky Garden.

The Sky Garden is a rooftop observation deck on the top of one of the skyscrapers in London’s central business district.

This building is called the Shard, as in shard of glass. It is located across the Thames from the Sky Garden. King Charles hates this new architectural style.

After we exited the Sky Garden we had a quick lunch and then toured the Tower of London. We started with a tour led by one of the Beefeaters.

This tour lasted about an hour and our tour guide did a great job giving us the highlights of the history of the Tower of London.
Did you know the kings and queens had a royal menagerie in the Tower of London complex that included animals from every corner of their far flung empire?
Tower Bridge.

For dinner we went to a Michelin stared West African restaurant called Akoko.

First course was beef tartare.
Second course was an Irish oyster.
Third course was seared mackerel.
Fourth course was monkfish.
Fifth course was caviar.
Sixth course was a slice of beef tenderloin.
Seventh course was ox tongue.

After that we had three dessert courses.

Watermelon Granita.
White chocolate covered ice cream.
Cookies and chocolate squares.

What a delicious and memorable meal!

That’s it for today. I hope you are having a wonderful day wherever you are.

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Published by abeandmarkonthecamino

I've been retired from the Union Pacific Railroad since 2017. I've been planning to walk the Camino for about 6 months and can't wait to get started.

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