The tower

A news flash for clueless colonists: The Tower of London isn't vertical prison full of dungeon cells, as we had expected. And it isn't much of a tower. It's a fort, with a four- or five-story building in the center. And, it wasn't built to be a prison, but it was heavily armed and guarded, so that's where important prisoners were housed in a modest three-story tower near the outer wall. It was there that Sir Walter Raleigh and his family lived for 13 years before, like many others, he lost his head.

We saw the Line of Kings, carved wooden horses and heads of that have been a tourist attraction since the 17th century. We stood on the moving walkway that carries you past the crown jewels in a display apparently sponsored by the DeBeers company.

We also learned that the ornate bridge near the tower isn't London Bridge, it's called Tower Bridge. The design of London Bridge, which isn't far away, is quite unremarkable. It's been rebuilt several times because, like the nursery rhyme says, it was apt to fall down.