I've been to the Tower of London twice, and learned so much on both occasions. I really recommend the guided tour. The Beefeaters know all of the Tower's history and point out a lot of things that have signifigance that you would normally just pass by. The tour is free and meets just inside the entrance, so why not? After it's done you can wander around for as long as you like. The crown jewels are spectacular...hard to imagine that stones that big exist! The chapel is beautiful and is a great quiet spot to soak up the history. The monument outside of the chapel where Anne Boleyn and a select few others lost their heads is a stark reminder of what the Tower is best known for, and across the street from the Tower you'll find monuments listing the other prominent members of history who were put on the scaffold (Simon Fraser, Sir Thomas Moore, etc...). The tickets aren't cheap but they're worth every penny....or should I say "pence" :)

We took the underground from there to Tower Hill Station. We did the guided tour thing first, which took about an hour. The guide was not a costumed actor, but an actual yeoman warder, which was really cool. The tour was informative and definitely worth doing. After that, we explored it ourselves It's pretty big - it's actually 20 towers, not one. It was the royal castle for over 500 years before Buckingham was built. There is a Tudor house inside, which is another of the Queen's residences, although currently some governor is living there with her permission (the Nazi Rudolf Hess was imprisoned in that house for a time). The White towers house the Crown Jewels, the value of which I couldn't begin to imagine. I think there were some torture devices in the basement of another tower, but we ran out of time as we were rushing over that way. We had entered 2 hours before closing time, and it just wasn't enough.

If you're as obsessed with the Tudors as I am then this is a must see! I walked around touching walls thinking Henry the 8th probably touched this wall and looked out windows think Anne Boleyn could have started for hour looking out this window. I sat down by the water gate and imagined the princess Elizabeth entering through here to plea to the harsh Queen Mary for her life. There's a decent museum on the ground that displays some of the royal jewelry. And another exhibit showing the armor and weaponry of the times.

Founded nearly a millennium ago and expanded upon over the centuries since, the Tower of London has protected, housed, imprisoned and been for many the last sight they saw on Earth. It has been the seat of British government and the living quarters of monarchs ... the site of renown political intrigue, and the repository of the Crown Jewels ... It has housed lions, bears, and (to this day) flightless ravens ... not to mention notorious traitors and framed members of court, lords and ministers, clergymen and knights.

Its history spans nearly 2000 years, its the world's ninth largest city, its a first city in the world to have an underground railway, it has 100 theatres including 50 in the West End alone, it has world most famous monuments, castles, museums, fashion sense that rules the world, it has the largest non white population of any European city & over 250 languages are spoken here.....is there a need to say anything more?