Westminster Abbey

Westminster Abbey facade

Today we took a tour of Westminster Abbey. Our tour guide was a Blue Badge Tour Guide, so he had trained for at least two years, and knew seemingly everything about London and the UK in general. It was super interesting to hear all the information about the church, and to see where all the coronations, weddings, and funerals happen. Although I hadn't seen any of these on TV when they happened, even Kate and William's wedding, now that I've been inside the building, I might look them up just to see how it is without all the tourists. 

Main Hall of Westminster Abbey

The first main thing we saw at Westminster was the tomb of the unknown warrior, symbolizing all of the lost British soldiers in World War One. We learned about how the US gave this warrior the Medal of Honour, and that no one has ever stepped on the tombstone. It was also interesting to learn that there was an actual person buried there, even though it's just generally a symbol and not about this one man. From here, we could also see a beautiful view of the whole church (on the right). 

Next, we got to see many other important parts of the church, including Queen Elizabeth I and Mary I's tomb. This whole time, the tour guide was explaining parts to us, but he knew so much that sometimes it was hard to keep up. However, I could still tell that he was a really good tour guide, and he had some really good jokes. 

Finally, we went to the different "corners" with clusters of people with similar jobs buried together. For example, the poets' corner, scientists' corner, and the writers' corner. I recognized some of the names, but most of them were really old British people. The tour guide told stories about some of the people, including Shakespeare. He isn't actually buried in Westminster Abbey; his real grave is in Stratford-upon-Avon, where he is from. Apparently at some point, the abbey people wanted to exhume his body and bury it again in the church, but he had written on his tomb "And cursed be he that moves my bones" so they were too scared, and left his body where he wanted it in the first place. They still have a tribute to him (left). 

I really liked this church. Although I couldn't fully understand all the history that is involved, I liked seeing the old architecture and the tombs of famous people I had heard of.