Moving on through the city of London ....here are pictures of Temple Bar, Trafalgar Square, Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, Parliament building, Tower Bridge.....on and on...the size and stature of the buildings was amazing.

Admiral Lord Nelson

    

Yep, they still have phone 'boxes' as they call them!!

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Westminster Abbey

Shakesphere's Globe Theater

Massive Beautiful Buildings dating back centuries.

The Royal Victoria Patriotic Building

The Royal Victoria Patriotic Building

This is the building right next to our apartment in London. After getting settled into our apartment, we ventured out to explore the neighborhood. There is a small restaurant just inside the courtyard. So much history is contained within these walls, it is inspiring.

A brief history of this magnificent building:

19th Century
Funded by Prince Albert’s Royal Patriotic Fund, the building was intended for the ‘Education and Training of three hundred Orphan Daughters of Soldiers, Seamen and Marines who perished in the Russian War, and for those who hereafter may require like succour’ . Originally named as the Royal Victoria Patriotic Asylum, the building was designed by Major Rhode Hawkins in a heroically ornate Gothic style.

20th Century
By the First World War the building had been renovated. A new heating system was installed and the building had become the South Western General Hospital. In the First World War a temporary railway station was built in front of the building and thousands of wounded troops were treated there. The field behind the building, now the cricket pitch, was filled with marquees full of wounded soldiers – approximately 1800 patients at any one time. After the war the school, still for girls only, reopened until the pupils were evacuated to Wales in 1939.
During the Second World War, the building became the London Reception Centre, a polite name for an alien clearing station run by MI6,under the direction of Colonel Pinto .
After the war the building was used as a Teachers Training College. Now it is used as studio apartments and shops or art gallaries. 

http://www.rvpb.com/history.htm

St. Paul's Cathedral

Saturday sightseeing began with St. Paul's Cathedral. The majesty, size and beauty of this place can not be described adequately. To see it in person is so much more than looking at pictures, but here are a few shots. 

Huge and Magnificent doesn't even come close to describing this!

Such a majestic piece of architecture. 

Tower of London - Westminster - Southwark area - Continuing on our journey around London, June 21 & 22, 2014

Our journey took us from the majesty of St. Paul's Cathedral to the medieval site of the Tower of London! The crown jewels are housed in one of the towers, but the lines were just too long to go into that tower. Here are pictures of some of the other 12 towers comprising the Tower of London.
You can learn more about these towers at this site.
http://www.hrp.org.uk/TowerOfLondon/stories/Discoverthetowers

And to think all of this was built before knowledge of modern day machinery. It is hard to imagine how all this was possible! 

Sunday, June 22, we continued our tour of various sections of London. 

Hallways and courtyard in the Methodist Church 

War Memorial

St. George's Park on our walk to Buckingham Palace

Entering the Mall to Buckingham Palace

More Buckingham Palace

Sir Francis Drake's Ship and Museum

Shakesphere's Globe Theater in South London- reconstruction based on descriptions

http://www.shakespeare-online.com/theatre/globe.html

The Clink!!

Tooting Bec Station was our get on/get off point. Our apartment was about a mile up the road from this station. Here is the area around Tooting Bec. 

This is all the time we had in London.  On Monday we headed to Paris for the day, then on to Bath and points beyond.......