After spending our morning at Westminster Abbey we decided to head to the Tower of London… but needed to get some lunch first. We stopped at a small Italian restaurant and were immediately attended to by a petite, efficient waitress who moved at an abrupt pace and appeared to serve ten tables at a time. She rushed us into ordering food and drinks while ending each sentence in “Please, thank you.” To make our long story short, by the end of our quick yet delicious meal we were stressed to the point of no return. Attempting to escape our stressful waitress we headed to the Waterloo tube Station.
We took the train that lead us to the London Bridge stop instead of Tower Hill Station, a simple mistake on our part. Leaving the station, we walked through the “Queen’s Walk” and came upon the HMS Belfast Battleship, immediately we thought this would be an interesting excursion. Having just an audio guide and our digital cameras we proceeded to board the ship and explore this historical landmark. On our self-guided tour we struggled as we made our way through narrow stairs, pipe filled boiler rooms and the inescapable smell of gun powder in the weapon filled rooms.
We learned that the ship is part of the Imperial War Museum and was first launched on St Patrick’s Day of 1938; it played a vital role in the Second World War. During our tour we discovered that Belfast was the leader behind the destruction of the German battlecruiserScharnhorst during the Battle of North Cape.
Although, as a collective we are promoters of peace, we couldn’t help but to be impressed by the ship’s weaponry infrastructure. There were two identical shell rooms with machines that were capable of launching eight shells per minute which led Jack Frost (crew member of HMS Belfast) to describe the ship as a “floating gun plot.” Members of the crew had specific job titles ranging from weapon handling, chefs, dentists, and even surgeons! We had fun interacting with the wax figures which were placed throughout the ship to represent actual crew members. After attempting to climb out of the lower chambers of the ship, we were happy to inhale fresh air.
We took a short break, and headed towards the Tower Bridge. We crossed the bridge and felt a sense of accomplishment as this is one of the most famous bridges in London’s history. By this point our feet were aching so we decided that it was in our best interest to head back to the hotel.
On Aug. 20, 2009 we got on the Tube at the Goodge St. station. We took the Northern line to Embankment where we switched lines and headed toward District. We got off at Tower Hill. In total this trip took about 30 minutes.