Day 5 (part 1): Tower of London

The next day dawned rainy and cold. It was a bit miserable, if I’m being honest, the rain was more of a sleet and I started to worry we might have to rearrange some of our plans. We bundled up, grabbed our umbrellas and set out for a cute little pancake house around the corner from our hotel.

The first item on our agenda was the Tower of London. We arrived cold and wet, but luckily, the rain/sleet had let up enough for us to enjoy ourselves. Prior to arriving in London, this wasn’t even remotely on my radar as something we would do. But Lucas was so excited to check it out after walking by the previous day that we booked online tickets when we got back to our room that night and arrived at opening.

Lucas might as well have been our tour guide. He seemed to know everything about everything from the crown jewels to the history of the tower to the purpose of the ravens and the history of the yeoman warders. All from Mac B. Kid Spy. It was so fun to watch him soak up the real place he was introduced to in a book. He took us first to see the crown jewels (no photography allowed inside the vault), which were guarded by beefeaters.

After touring the crown jewels, he marched us off to explore the White Tower.

There were multiple floors throughout the White Tower with museum like displays, but I think the part that resonated most with the kids was the architecture, it was a legitimate tower.

After exiting the White Tower we went to find the ravens…

Next we scaled the battlements…

Happy to report we did bring a raven home with us. Meet, Georgie!

The weather certainly didn’t start out very promising that morning, but the sun started to shine as we made our way out of the Battlements in search of lunch.

We tossed around a few different possibilities for lunch, but ultimately decided to head to Leadenhall Market. Just as with Borough Market, I had read a lot of great things about Leadenhall (another filming location for Harry Potter) and after such a fantastic experience the day before we decided to head off for a similar concept.

It took a bit to find it, but when we did it felt near deserted. Restaurants were open but there wasn’t much of a vibe at all. It didn’t really have much of a market feel, instead it felt more like walking through an outdoor mall. I’ve seen so many pictures of this place and while it’s gorgeous, it’s not what we thought we were going to find. It just goes to show how many factors there are. It’s entirely possible that it’s a better weekend option, or an evening choice, but we were completely underwhelmed. And these are the only two photos I took while we were there.

I hardly even want to admit to you that we ended up at that pizza place, but we did. The pizza was great, but it wasn’t exactly what we had in mind when we set off for a market atmosphere.

The MOST touristy activity (and my favorite thing we did in London) coming up next… a double decker bus!

Shoebox Full of Memories: A Paris and London Trip Report - March 2023 (Day 5 Part 1 - Tower of London)