Sail Away

Have you ever wondered what being in a 1940's movie would feel like?  To be Loretta Young or Olivia DeHaviland for just a day or an hour.  The sail away from London was just that experience.

The departure was not at Tilbury as we expected, instead we took off from and under the Tower Bridge!!!  The crew decorated the ship with banners, balloons, fruit carvings, and all sorts of other goodies.  Each of us were given an English flag to wave and a glass of champagne.  The captain blew the whistle and we were underway with Rule Britannia playing on the loudspeakers and folk on the shore waving at us as we passed by.  Very emotional and a very beautiful sail away.  There is no way to capture the excitement but here's what we saw....

The pilots came through the Tower Bridge to lead us out to the channel.  We also got to see some police action as one of their boats came roaring past with lights and sirens going.  I swear I didn't do anything - promise!

The smokestacks gave us the first clue we were about to be underway.

With all due respect to Ty Pennington..."move that gangplank!!!!" and they did.

The little boat you see is a wooden speed boat.

Soon we were leaving the HMS Belfast behind.  We were moored next to her and in fact had to get on board our ship by walking across her.  

The HMS Belfast was named for the Northern Irish capital of Belfast.  Construction was begun in 1936 and she was launched on St. Patrick's Day 1938.  Commissioned in August 1939 right before WW-II began, the Belfast was part of a naval blockade against Germany.  In November of the same year she ran into a German mine and spent two years being repaired.  She came back stronger than ever and saw action the rest of the war including the Normandy invasion and was part of the Korean War as well.  In 1967 she was saved from the scrap yard and turned into a museum that opened in 1971.

A beautiful British lady was standing next to me as we sailed away.  Her father had been aboard the Belfast during the war and they had brought him to London  to celebrate a recent birthday.  The museum staff gave him a birthday to remember according to her.  

And we are off...……

Let the party begin!  

Some of what we saw in the next hour.

The Thames Tunnel was built between 1825 and 1843 and was the first tunnel to have been constructed beneath a navigable river.  It measures 35 feet wide by 20 feet  high and is 1,300 feet  long, running at a depth of 75 feet below the river surface measured at high tide. The tunnel was originally designed for horse-drawn carriages, but was never used for that purpose. 

Above in the center is a building affectionately called the "Kim Kardashian" building.  You may draw your own conclusion why they call it that.


To the right is the "Cell Phone" building.  Self evident.

There are thirteen vistas protected by The London View Management Framework including both Westminster Palace and St. Paul's Cathedral from different vantage points around the city.  This could be one reason for oddly shaped buildings - there is also a cheese grater.

The Shard gets its name from the top of the building that looks like a shard of glass.  It is an office building, hotel and has retail establishments, ten residential apartments, restaurants and bars in it as well.  It is 1016 feet tall, 95 stories tall, has 1,307,383 million square feet, and opened in 2014.

I have no idea, but the light hitting it as we sailed by made it stand out.

The Cutty Sark, last of the tea clippers that were no longer needed when the steam propulsion ships and Suez Canal made trade from China faster.  Built in 1869.

The Royal Hospital for Seamen at Greenwich, began life as a palace and was not a hospital as we know it, instead it was a hospitable place for those that needed it.  Queen Mary II was moved by the seamen returning from the Battle of La Hogue in 1692 and ordered the King Charles wing of the palace to be converted to a hospital for seamen as a counterpart to the Chelsea Hospital for soldiers.  The original plans would block the view of the River Thames from the Queen's House so the plans were redesigned to split the buildings and have an avenue coming through the hospital grounds to the house and Greenwich Hill behind the house.

The Millennium Dome was constructed to celebrate the third millennium.  It was opened from 

January 1, 200 to December 31, 2000 and was home to the Millennium Experience.  It was not the success it was thought it would be and cause quite a political stink because of that.  There is symbolism in the design of the building.  The twelve yellow poles represent the months of the year or the hours of a clock and it is circular measuring 365 meters - one for each day of the year.  The roof weighs less than the air inside the dome.  I did hear one reference to "Major's Folly" referring to Prime Minister John Major who was in power when the idea was conceived.

As we slept and throughout the next the captain safely got us to Guernsey.

Lots of whispers were heard in London but what will Guernsey say?  Stay tuned.

The Tower

The Tower of London

Not a place you want to visit unless it is for a short jaunt through a very historic complex.  Anne Boleyn came for a visit and we all know how that turned out.  

The Tower is actually a castle and residence of the royal family.  The official name is Her Majesty's Royal Palace and Fortress of the Tower of London.  

This is the "Tower"

 If you try to penetrate this fortress you will be pelted with nasty stuff being catapulted at you, or perhaps one of the kids playing around it will bite you on the ankle.  That takes you inside but you still have that great wall to scale.









If you make it over that wall, how are you going to get through the gate?  Not sure my left arm would make it through there, let alone my body.  I'm thinking that the guide told us that the gate was original to the Tower.

Ahhh, you made it into the grounds proper, but oops, now you have to deal with the guard.  Give it up, no way are you getting to the crown jewels without being tortured or beheaded or imprisoned for life.  

This sentry is a silent guard.  He stands outside a building that has residences and therefore does not do the foot stomping turns other guards do.  Notable "tenants" in this residence hall were Anne Boleyn and William Penn (more of him in a moment).

William Penn was imprisoned after ticking off the Bishop of London with a tract he published, "The Sandy Foundation Shaken".  The tract was a last resort after a dispute with a Friends Society on whether Friends "owned one Godhead subsisting in three distinct and separate persons."  .  The conclusion of the work gave great offense to the Bishop and an order was procured from the government for Penn's imprisonment in the Tower.  

After some time in the prison he was offered the choice of recanting his statements or spending his life in prison.  He refused to recant his beliefs and resolved to die in the Tower.  He wrote a letter to Lord Arlington, the Secretary of State, stating he was illegally imprisoned without trial or conviction and was basically jailed because of a difference of opinion.  

It worked and he was released, but the discharge came from the King, through the intercession of his brother, the Duke of York - later James II.

These are the non-silent guards who slam their feet down on the pavement making a loud noise when they do a three point turn.  The first I saw of the one in back he was standing so perfectly still I thought he was a cardboard statue for kids to take a picture with instead of a live being.

Some miscellaneous shots throughout the complex.

Tower Bridge in the background.

One of the six ravens on duty at the Tower.  The seventh, and backup raven, is kept caged in case he is needed.  There is a superstition that if the ravens leave the Tower of London the Tower AND the kingdom will fall.  King Charles II was the one that believed the warning he received and put the protection order on them.  His astronomer, John Flamsteed, wasn't happy since the ravens messed up his studies in the Observatory in the White Tower - probably literally.

The ravens (in 2017 there was Jubilee, Harris, Gripp, Rocky, Erin, Poppy and Merlina - not sure if these are the same bunch).  They have their primary and secondary flight feathers trimmed but are all able to fly but why should they when they have a comfortable home and dinner served by the Ravenmaster.  If you join them for dinner the menu will include mice, chicks rats and assorted raw meats - if you are lucky you will get a special treat of a biscuit soaked in blood.  Yum!

The ravens have been dismissed because of "conduct unbecoming to Tower residents".  One example is Raven George, dismissed in 1986 to the Welsh Mountain Zoo - conduct unsatisfactory, therefore service no longer required.  His crime?  He wanted to fly but with the clipping of one wing he was basically grounded.  Ravens are known to be intelligent beings, and George was crafty as well.  He learned to climb the fire escape, perch high on a wall and glide down.  In 1981 he went AWOL and was found at a pub and forced to return to duty.  But alas, he didn't conform to the rules and five years later was sent to Raven Siberia after destroying five TV antennas in just one week.

Hugine and Jackie were in love in 1995 and got all riled up during mating season and were never able to settle down.  Again "conduct unbecoming to Tower Residents".  

The only photo I could get of the crown jewels.  Photography is strictly prohibited.  I've never seen Queen Elizabeth in person, but she looks to me like a small woman.  A small woman that wore 18,000 pounds of gold, jewels and whatever for her coronation.  I just don't see how she did it.  The cloak alone had to weigh a couple of hundred pounds easily, the sphere another 50-60, then the crown and the scepter and all the lesser bits and pieces.

So your buddy King Henry III, back in 1235, is getting married.  You don't want to get them a toaster, towels, or a blender for a gift, after all he is a king.   That was the conundrum of Holy Roman Emperor, Frederick II who finally settled on 3 lions as the perfect gift.  King Haakon of Norway followed suit in 1251 and sent a polar bear.  The poor bear was chained by his ankle close to the Thames River so he could swim and catch fish.  These were followed by an African Elephant, tigers, kangaroos, camels, alligators and many other exotic, to Londoners at the time, animals.  The first zoo in London closed its doors in 1831 and the animals moved to Regent's Park. 

Kendra Haste fabricated 13 sculptures depicting these animals out of only layers of painted galvanized wire atop steel armatures.  The sculptures will remain on view through 2021.  These are just a sampling - I did not see the elephant or lions which are fabulous from the images online I have seen.

 

and of course that poor Polar Bear that just breaks my heart.

I was going to add the sail away but think we will keep that for another post.  Hint:  Very emotional and moving and fabulous and wonderful and well done.  

Bye!