London - Second Visit - July 24

Today was one of the few free days that Oxford has given us. Another student and I decided to hop on the tube (bus service) and travel to London for another look at the Westminster Abbey and the British national Museum. We had a great day...and we topped it off by shopping at Harrods department store.

Westminster Abbey

We started off by visiting the inside of Westminster Abbey. Notice the Martyr Memorial above the doorway...in the center is Martin Luther King, Jr.

Incredible...Westminster Abbey is steeped in more than a thousand years of history. Benedictine monks first came to this site in the middle of the tenth century, establishing a tradition of daily worship which continues to this day.

The present church, begun by Henry III in 1245, is one of the most important Gothic buildings in the country, with the medieval shrine of an Anglo-Saxon saint still at its heart.

Westminster Abbey is famous for its many tombs and memorials. Ranging in date from the eleventh to the twenty-first centuries and displaying a corresponding variety of artistic styles they form the most important single collection of monumental sculpture in the country.

There are around 600 monuments and memorial statues together with many gravestones and commemorative floor slabs, though these represent only a small proportion of the 3,300 people who are actually buried in the church and its cloisters. As well as the shrine of St Edward the Confessor, the tombs of kings and queens, and important military memorials, the Abbey has been for several centuries the place where the nation commemorates those who have achieved greatness in many different walks of life, including literature, science, music, religion and politics.

British National Museum

Harrods Department Store

Sharon, I've decided that since I love you so much...that I would let you shop there...and anything that your eye falls upon...you may have! NOT!!!! VERY EXPENSIVE!!! Well...the I love you part is true...are you sorry you married a poor preacher?

I also thought it was interesting that there is a memorial to Princess Diana and to Dodi Fahad in Harrods. Dodi Fahad's father owns Harrods department store.