London, Part 2

[kenjari]

This has been a very packed day. I'm really tired now after spending nearly twelve hours on my feet. But it was worth it.
We started our day, and in fact spent the better part of our day, at the Tower of London. It's quite a place, and there is alot to see there, covering several centuries of history.
we started out with a Yeoman Warder tour, which provides a good overview of the Tower. The Yeoman Warders are all semi-retired members of the British military. They live in the Tower complex, too.
After the tour, Matthew and I went off to exploore the complex/ We saw very nearly everything, except for the Regimental Museum, and the Beecham Tower, which was closed for restoration. I enjoyed the medieval palace section the best. It had a few rooms restored to their states in the time of Edward I, and some medieval artifacts on display.
The White Tower was also quite interesting. It houses an extensive exhibition of weapons and armor from the Conquest through the 19th century. It's a very impressive building, too. It dates from the Conquest (thus making it the oldest part of the Tower of London), and hasn't been changed that radically over the centuries.
Walking along the walls and through the various towers was also great. Many of the rooms have graffiti scratched into the walls by prisoners from the Tudor and Elizabethan eras. I love things like that - the little personal details left behind and intact. They are the things that make history real for me, the things that make me feel as if I can really touch the past.
The Tower is a wonderful experience, but very different from our castle visits in Wales. The Tower of London is full of visitors, and covers so much. There isn't as muc of the feeling of intimacy with history and with the past itself that we found so easy to achieve at the more deserted, less built-up places in Wales. However, the Tower of London is so central to so much history that I'm really glad to have seen it.
The educational aspects of the Tower are well-done, if aimed more at the general population than at the serious scholar. There are, however, costumed interpreters representing at least four periods of history, who tell about various people and incidents in a more anecdotal, narrative way.
After the Tower, we went over to the Tate Modern museum for about an hour and a half, mostly because it was the closest museum. The other reason we went was for the Rothko paintings. I love the work of Mark Rothko - he is perhaps my favorite modern painter. The Tate has a whole room of Rothko, containing a series of large paintings in black and maroon. Rothko paintings, for all their simplicity, require time and attention. There is more there than one might initially think. That's probably why I like them so much.
We looked at many other works, but we weren't very systematic or thorough about it, because of our time limitations. The Tate has an incredibly good collection, and they've arranged it thematically rahter than chronologically. I was surprised at how often I was able to name the artist before looking at the placards. I guess all my museum visiting is paying off.
After the Tate Modern, Matthew and I made our way over to Brick Lane for Indian food. It isn't very far from the Tower, and we only got a little lost. We had a very yummy dinner, then headed back to the Tower Hill tube stop for our walking tour.
Matthew and I had decided to go on the Jack the Ripper tour. It goes through the East End and visits the sites of some of the murders. Plus, the guides talk about plenty of historical tidbits and information about the case. It was really very interesting. Plus, we got to see some more of London.