Westminster Abbey

Today was our day to tour Westminster Abbey. When we arrived, we found that we had just missed the tour that we wanted to take and had to wait an hour for the next, but it was worth it.

The tour guide was a verger and as he promised, he compacted 90 minutes of English history into a 90-minute tour. He did an excellent job and kept it interesting all the way. Benedictine monks founded the Abbey in 960 but major re-construction of the Abbey was started there by Edward the Confessor, who died in early 1066 and is buried there. 1066 is also famous as the year of the Norman conquest of England and William the Conqueror was crowned king there. Since then, all kings and queens of Britian have been coronated there. 

The abbey is the burial site of many of the kings in the Middle Ages, from Edward the Confessor up through King Henry VII. Also buried in the abbey are many other famous English people such as Chaucer, Dickens, Newton and more recently Stephen Hawking and Laurence Olivier. King Henry VIII and all following monarchs are buried at Windsor Castle. 

The abbey has been the site for many royal ceremonies. Most recently was Queen Elizabeth's funeral and the next one will be the coronation of King Charles III, all done in front of the altar in the center of the photo on the right. That ceremony will be May 6, 2023.

On our way back to the tube station we ran into a protest near 10 Downing Street. What was it about? Don't care. There have been on-going protests and strikes every day since we have been here. Rail workers, nurses, Stop Oil, climate change and even loss of starling habitats.

Finally, we decided to splurge and go to see our last stand-up comic, Sarah Pascoe, in style. We took Uber up and back. Costly but it saved several hours and an untold amount of train and bus rides. In addition, a portion of the track was closed due to a fatality, and it wasn't clear that we could even get there!