Thursday, February 19, 2015

London, England: The Tower of London

The Tower of London:
(Admission: Adult £22, Children ages 5-15 £11, Children under 5 are free, Family Pass £59 includes up to 2 adults and 3 children, or Concession £18.70 for full-time students 16 and over disabled visitors and over 60 with ID. There is also an Annual Membership £46 which includes unlimited entry to five palaces. All of these prices include a voluntary donation. Online rates are less expensive by a little over a pound.)

Tickets
Each ticket includes access to the Tower and the Crown Jewels display, exhibitions including Coins and Kings and Line of Kings, plus the Yeoman Warder guided tour, live historical re-enactments, White Tower tour and children's activity trails.

Audio Guides
There are also audio guides available for an added price of £4 per adult, £3 per child under 16 and concessions, or £12 per family group of up to 2 adults and 3 children. The audio tour includes five different tour options, such as listening to stories about the Normans and before, and the Medieval Palace, finding out more about imprisonment and execution inside the Tower, being dazzled by the Crown Jewels or allowing Chief Yeoman Warder to tell you what it's really like to live inside a royal Fortress. The languages the audio tours come in are English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Russian, Dutch, Portuguese, Japanese, Korean and Chinese (Mandarin).

Hours of Operation

March 1 through October 31 (Summer)
Tuesday - Saturday
9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.
Sunday - Monday
10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.
(last admission at 5 p.m.)

November 1 through February 28 (Winter)
Tuesday - Saturday
9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Sunday - Monday
10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
(last admission at 4 p.m.)

Top Attractions
The Crown Jewels
White Tower
Yeoman Warders
The Ravens
Tower Torture
Coins and Kings
Line of Kings
Royal Beasts
Fortress
The Fusilier Museum
Medieval Palace
Tower Green and Scaffold Site
Wall Walk


Tower of London Remembers
888, 246 ceramic poppies were added to this landmark in 2014, marking one hundred years since Britain's first full day of involvement in World War I. The exhibit was titled Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red and was created by artists Paul Cummins and Tom Piper. It took about 4 months to complete (started July 17 and ended November 11). Each poppy represented a British military fatality from WWI. All of the poppies from the exhibit were sold and the millions of pounds raised were shared equally between six service charities, Cobseo, Combat Stress, Coming Home, Help for Heroes, The Royal British Legion and SSAFA. The tour will hopefully last until 2018 before being permanently based at the Imperial War Museums in London and Manchester.


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