London: Part 4 (Tower Bridge, Tower of London, St. Paul's Cathedral, Millennium Bridge)

That seemed like quite enough for one day, on no sleep, and walking everywhere.  So we crashed in our hostel and slept for as long as possible, but still rallied pretty early in the morning and headed out to see the Tower Bride and the Tower of London.

The Tower Bridge is often confused with the London Bridge because it is one of the well known landmarks in London.  The actual London Bridge is very very boring looking, just like a highway over water.  The Tower Bridge however, is really really impressive looking.  The bottom can be easily raised so that the bridge can still allow boats through and really was a triumph in Victorian architecture at the time (1894).

Right in front of the tower bridge is the HMS Belfast, left over from World War II

The Tower Bridge and the HMS Belfast are located right next to the Tower of London, a very key building in London.  It used to have a moat, but is now dry.  It is a multipurpose castle basically, but is most well known for its dungeon qualities, holding prisoner some famous British royalty, such as Anne Boleyn (who was executed there I believe as well) and Queen Elizabeth I.  I thought that was pretty amazing, especially because I used to be really fascinated with Henry XIII and his wives and children, and the whole city is just filled with neat little spots of history.  

Then we headed off to St. Paul's Cathedral, which was massively impressive.  It has the second highest dome in the world (the basilica in Rome being the only higher), but it is just really mind-blowingly beautiful and large.  It was a Sunday so we couldn't actually enter but the outside alone was amazing.  

  

We then headed across to the Millennium Bridge, which was not on either of our lists of things to see, but when I read my guidebook I thought it looked pretty neat.  So as we headed over to it, we saw that it was such a cool little thing!  The suspension is horizontal instead of vertical, which creates a really neat effect, and it leads almost directly from St. Paul's to the Tate Modern (which we headed to next). 

 

I don't know if any of you are devoted Harry Potter fans like Meghan and myself, but this was the bridge that the Dementor's swooped down and attacked in one of the later Harry Potter movies.  Just for your dork-fact pleasure :)

Sheesh, these get so very long!  Coming up: The Tate Modern, the Globe Theatre, and much much more!