Before I tell you about my experience at the Tower of London, I need to give a couple disclaimers about myself. First, I knew very little about British culture and history before coming on this trip. I know, I know, Shawn gave us that whole series of lectures last week about British culture and history. I promise I paid attention. But a lot of the information didn’t totally stick. So I was coming into the Tower of London absolutely blind. Second, I love museums. I love them. Truly. But I do not stop and read every single little plaque that is in front of all of the things on display. I wish I could. I respect people that can. But I simply cannot. I will read the things that interest me, but my attention span is too short, and my patience is too thin to read every single thing. So, as you can imagine I probably missed some of the information that the Tower of London Museum had to offer. I still got a lot of information. But if you are looking for a scholarly account of the historical and cultural information presented at the Tower of London, this is not your blog post babes, and I will see you in the next one.
Okay, enough disclaimers. The Tower of London was just absolutely stunning. I loved the architecture of the museum. I felt like I had been truly transported back in time. Luckily, when we went it was a gorgeous day, which also meant unfortunately there were LOADS of people looking to discover all that the Tower of London had to offer. First, we got to see the Crown Jewels. And yes… they were stunning. Stuntina as I called them. It was actually crazy to get to see them in real life. I will say… it was kind of off putting when you learned about where the Royals got the Jewels (thank you imperialism). I also went into this entire museum experience knowing that it was going to be a very Pro-Royal museum. It felt like the equivalent of an American History Museum. Very “Go Royals!”, “Save the Monarchy!”, and “We’ve never done anything wrong!” vibes which, is obviously not true. Needless to say, I took everything with a grain of salt.
I would say that my favorite exhibit was probably the exhibit where they talked about all of the exotic animals that used to be kept within the Tower of London walls. I had no clue that the Kings and Queens of the past used to bring Polar Bears, Lions, Snakes, Elephants, and even Monkeys to London. This display of the animals was used as a sign of wealth for the Royals. And when the Tower of London opened as a tourist attraction, they let tourists roam and pet these exotic animals. As you can imagine, this did not end well, and the animals were then placed in the London Zoo.
One of the other fascinating and also unsettling things that the Tower of London had an exhibit on was the deep history of torture and imprisonment that took place in the Tower. Which, first of all… insane. Second of all, was a little off putting to be in the rooms learning about these people who would often spend years and years in these towers being tortured or imprisoned. There was an exibit where you climbed to the top of this tower and there was a short film that was being played about the disappearance and probable murder of Prince Edward V, and his younger brother Prince Richard. I had no idea about this British mystery and was fascinated by the exhibit. If you have a chance, I highly recommend you look into it.
I finished the day at the Tower by walking along the Moat floor, which is now covered in beautiful flowers. Which of course, caused for a lovely photo op. I can’t believe we’ve only been here four days… I’m having an absolute blast.
-R
Theatre in London U of A 