10/11/2014

Blood Swept Lands and seas of red at the tower of london

Today is the day we remember them all


They shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old. Age shall not weary them, not the years condemn. At the going down of the sun, and in the morning We will remember them.
To all of those who gave their today so we can have our tomorrow, we honour you. 

We've been wanting to get down to London to see the poppies for a few weeks now and Mr C and I finally managed to get there. We just had to see them before they were taken away and see for ourselves this historic and totally breathtaking display.


Everyone knows about the Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red that's located at the Tower of London. Basically it's marking one hundred years since the first full day of Britain's involvement in the First World War. These beautiful poppies have been created by ceramic artist Paul Cummins, with setting by stage designer Tom Piper. A total of 888,246 ceramic poppies fill the Tower's famous moat and each poppy represents a British military fatality during the war. 

We placed our order for our ceramic poppy a little while ago, our little piece of history and proud owners we will be.

They were so many people there that day and I know thousands continue to visit. I'm so glad we went and now have photos to store in our memory bank. Take a look.
The volunteers who work so hard.
Keys to the Tower?! Better behave Mr C or else.
Think these two Beefeaters mean business!
I love how they have modern day technology stuck in their ears blending in with their historical uniforms! 
Ours is in there somewhere.
Afterwards we moved on to various tourist-y spots. If you want to join us just keep on scrolling down. 
I've never seen Tower Bridge lift up before, pretty amazing stuff. 
First time I've walked across it too and man it was busy. People were queuing for miles just to get up the steps onto the bridge, and get over to the poppies, seriously! A lovely man in an ice cream van told us where to go for a short cut up onto the bridge. Thank you kind Sir. 
The very old old blends quite seamlessly with the new I think.
We hope to go up the Shard the next time we visit as people have said it's quite spectacular. In fact we've still so much we want to do on all our 'next visits' we'll still be trying to get through the list in years to come. London holds the key to so much history, excitement and adventure, we just love it here.

We stopped for a spot of lunch close to St Paul's Cathedral. The clouds dispersed and made way for a beautiful blue sky and the sun even made an appearance. It got so warm I got close to taking my jacket off, so that's saying something for late October, as I'm ALWAYS cold. 

The area surrounding of St Paul's seems so calming and spiritual to me and it was lovely just having a wander in the sunshine, watching everyone, people coming, people going, friends meeting up and even a bride and groom stood on the steps for photos whilst we were there!  
Three stunning bronze statues depicting firefighters in action at the height of the blitz. 
So life-like, it's as if they want to tell you their story. I stood looking at this for what seemed like ages.
Night time was drawing in yet it was still an amazing 17degrees!!!!
We mooched around Carnaby Street and then it was time to go.

Farewell London town, we will be back very soon.


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6 comments

  1. Beautiful photography.
    We visited the poppies a couple of weeks ago. You can't describe the emotion to anyone unless you have been there!

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    1. Thanks so much. That's very true actually and we didn't realise how long we'd been there, just standing, with our own thoughts and feeling very proud! x

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  2. Beautiful photographs. You're so lucky to get to see the poppies. Lynne xx

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    1. Hi Lynne. Thanks, I love the photos, memories to treasure and pass on, along with our ceramic poppy when it gets here. I am so pleased we managed to get there, it was important to me and my husband. xx

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  3. Lovely photos Steph, you're so lucky to of gone to see the Poppies, my Mum has ordered one and said she's going to try to get us one too, fingers crossed. I bet it was emotional there... Your pics are rerally making me miss the UK more and more! x x

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    1. It was very emotional Heather, and I'm so glad we went. You need a trip back over to the UK! x

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