A stormy British night: flashes of lightning and bone-shaking thunder, followed by curtains of marble-sized raindrops; a perfect night to be in a pub. Out here in Hampstead, the pubs are relatively empty and provide a respite from the masses swarming everywhere along the Thames.
I finally visited the Tower of London and was overwhemled by the number of people stuffed into the place and underwhelemed by the things to see once within the walls. Originally, the Tower was a place of torture, and yesterday, it still was. "Crammed cheek to jowel" is the saying my dad used to use (and among his sayings, the only one repeatable in polite company) and nowhere was the more true than to see the Crown Jewels. Somewhere in the fray were cases containing the jewels, but the heck if I saw those. I had more luck on the little moving walkway -- oo, pretty pretty! -- that and the back of about a thousand people's heads were all I really saw. Oh, and I did see the ravens ravening about, so that was pretty cool.
Equally packed today was Westminster Abbey. When I visited on the same day back in 2015, the place was nearly empty and we were able to wander freely: not so today. There had to be about 3,000 people jammed in there, and moving was hard enough without people stopping at every monument to take a photo (and I do mean every. single. one). I also wonder if this was the first church many people have visited given the number of photos -- selfies and otherwise -- people were taking of the altar. The namesake of my wife's family is interred in the Abbey. You can find her grave if someone would move the organ that's been covering it since 2015. I suspect that once someone does move the damned thing, they'll find the skeletons of a half-dozen tourists, still with phones in hand, under there.
Better was the Chruchill War Rooms, which had the advantage of being pricy and limited in tickets. My wife is reading The Splendid and the Vile, about Churchill's war years, and she richly enjoyed seeing all the sights talked about in the book. I enjoyed the part where there was less of a Black Hole of Calcutta vibe compared to the other places we visited. To be perfectly honest, the War Rooms were interesting and worth the money. In fact, some lucky family was being giving a private tour where they got to go into the actual rooms with an IWM docent. Talk about skip the line!
Not crowded at all, Hampstead Heath and Highgate Cemetary. Now this was a treat! Walking through the Heath reminded me of strolling through Central Park in New York City. Dogs -- so many dogs! -- ran joyously unfettered. The joggers and strollers and swimmers carried with them a vibe of enjoyment and I felt a bit of the pulse of the real London, or at least the posh part I'm staying in.
Of the many people interered in Highgate Cemetary, Karl Marx seems a crowd favorite, 'tho I was drawn to Douglas Adams. I missed the grave of the Barker family, one of which went down with the Titanic. Still, even without the "greatest hits", Highgate is still and quiet and mostly empty of the living. Of all the sights I saw on this final leg of my trip, Highgate Cemetary and Hampstead Heath were my favorites (my wife favored the War Rooms).
So London is packed and thundery, even this late into the season. The taxi drivers are delightfully chatty; the Uber drivers are Uber drivers. The unholy nexus of Revenge Travel and Golden Week is bearable, if only slightly so. Would I come to London again under the same circumstances? Probably not, but it's possible the "crowds" of 2015 are a thing of the past and the crowds of 2023 are the future, so suck it up, buttercup (another dad saying).
-- Mike Beebe