When I had visited London in the past by myself, I was positively gobsmacked by the Tower of London. The grandeur. The Crown Jewels. The regal history spiced up by the gruesome events that took place right where you are standing (just one example: King Henry VIII had not just one, but 2 of his poor wives heads chopped off on the lawn of the Tower).
So, when we visited on this trip, I was looking forward to sharing this historical gem with the kids and basking in their inevitable delight. "Thank you so much, Mom, for bringing us to this amazing piece of history and real-life castle!!! they would exclaim. "We love that you always know exactly what will appeal to us!!" Um, yeah. As any parent who has taken their tween or teenager to a historic site could already predict, it did not go as planned.
First, there were the usual inconveniences associated with visiting Europe in the summer -- too many people; too much waiting in line, etc. [Incidentally, do you ever wonder how may of other people's vacation photos you feature in?]
Then we picked up the audio tour which was, frankly, too lengthy and detailed for us and didn't have a good way to skip ahead or jump to specific spots. It would be great for history buffs or travelers with a lot of time to spend at the Tower (i.e., me 15 years ago), but we are not those people right now [despite how much some of us would dearly love to be].
We tried the audio tour but, alas, after a while our little group started to fray and splinter. The nephews opted to check things out on their own, sans tour. Gary decided to just do a quick "self-guided" tour since (oh, did I mention this already?) he was going for DINNER AT THE HOUSE OF LORDS and needed to head back to the flat to get dressed (I might digress at this point to note that I was the one who insisted that he bring a jacket and tie to London because "you never know" where we might want to go for dinner. Was my insightfulness rewarded by a +1 invitation to DINNER AT THE HOUSE OF LORDS, you might well ask? No, as a matter of fact, it was not. Not that I care. All that grandeur and history is stupid anyway. Sniff.)
Now our little group was down to me and Aunt Dianne and my two "delighted" children.
We still hadn't made it past the water gate (right near the entrance) on the audio tour, and it was time for one of the guided Beefeater tours to begin, so I recommended that we join that tour. Here is our Beefeater now:
The Beefeater tour was faster, funnier, led by a real live Beefeater -- what's not to like about that? I'm still not sure, but one of the children was not interested in that option and, let's just say, was not beaming with delight and thanking mom for the magical living-history experience. The other was, from all outer appearances, indifferent.
It was at this point that I realized we had, once again, become the Griswolds with me playing the part of up-beat, overly enthusiastic part of Clark Griswold and the kids playing the parts of, well, the kids. Sigh, it happens to us every vacation. I suspect we are not alone in this phenomenon. At least this time it was the European version and not the one where they tie the dead aunt to the top of the car (thank goodness for Aunt Dianne!). We did carry on with the tour though we skipped the crown jewels (too crowded) and we didn't make it into the White Tower either (also too crowded). The one thing we waited in line for ended up being one smallish room with a some shackles, a reproduction torture rack and a few informational signs. Here is the rack in case you wanted to see one.
As we were leaving with my dreams of the perfect family Tower tour eviscerated, I couldn't help reflecting that those former monarchs and other luminaries who locked up their troublesome relatives in a nice sound-proof room in the Tower may very well have had reasonable justification. I will have to go back sometime (by myself) and see if that is covered in the audio tour.
From the looks of things, I think Aunt Di might agree:
When Ken & I went to the tower, we loved the Beefeater's Tour. Wouldn't you know however, we got the only Beefeater in history that refused to stand with us for a picture. Said it was too demeaning!
Posted by: Anne | July 25, 2013 at 09:24 AM