American Girl In An English World

Royal Armouries Museum - Leeds, England

If you ever find yourself at the Tower of London, you will come across the Royal Armouries tower. If you want to see the rest of the collection (and find yourself with a 0.50p bus ticket from Megabus from NCL to Leeds), you should head to the Royal Armouries Museum in Leeds - north of London. About a 2 1/2 hour road trip from Newcastle.

London, Day 2: Tower of London

Well, actually it should be called Tower(S) of London, because there is like 20 of them! False advertising, England. :P

In any case, second day in London, first stop was the Tower of London. Entrance fee was a bit pricey - 17 GBP - but it was worth it, I think. They need the money to keep the place up, because it is huge.

These buildings, though they have been refurbished a bit with time obviously, were all originally built in 11th/12th century! England is so old and has tons of history.

According to the tour guide, this history could have belonged to us Americans if we hadn’t decided not to pay our taxes….

No pictures could be taken of the crown jewels, unfortunately. But WOW. 365 CARATS?! Sheesh.

Parts of the towers were in original condition - specifically the stairs. I wondered if anyone back in the 12th century ever died trying to go up/down them. Like, if there was an emergency and they were rushing, has anyone broken their neck.

Because I thought I was going to. haha.

I had to duck my head down a lot because apparently, no one in old England was tall at all. And at one point I had to use my hands to continue up the stairs because they were steep. But overall, I’m glad I did rowing, my legs were able to handle it pretty well.

If you ever go here, plan alot of time. We got there at 9am and we left after 12pm.