Day 5 - Westminster Abbey, Temple Church and National Gallery

Welcome to the house of God and also the house of Kings. This is Westminster Abbey. Since the crowning of William the Conqueror in 1066, the Abbey has been the nation's "Coronation church". It is also the burial and memorial place of numerous famous figure from the last one thousand years.















Just to name a few, we see the tombs of
- Edward I
- Henry III
- Elizabeth I and her half-sister Mary Tudor
- Mary, Queen of Scotts
plus 120 writers, poets, actors, musicians and artists are buried or memoralised here.

So funny, the churches in England are actually the graveyards of many.





This is one of the Cloisters. Note the arches on top. Come to think of it, architects at that time are pretty ingenious at making these kinds of tall buildings. Geez

















FYI, this is also where the funeral of Diana Princess of Wales took place.


















How can we miss the chance to take a picture in front of this majestic national church!


















We were then given the chance to get down at Buckingham Palace for a while to take some pics. See the 2 tiny red statues. They are the royal guards.










And then we took the chance to take pics with the Koreans, the Poland people and the Australians.













Dragons like these line the streets of London. They are there to indicate the boundaries of the city.














The Temple Church lies 'off street' between Fleet Street and the River Thames, in an 'oasis' of ancient buildings, courtyards and gardens.











The Church was built by the Knights Templar, the order of crusading monks founded to protect pilgrims on their way to and from Jerusalem in the 12th century. The Church is in two parts: the Round and the Chancel.

The Round Church was consecrated in 1185 by the patriarch of Jerusalem. It was designed to recall the holiest place in the Crusaders' world: the circular Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. It is a numinous space - and has a wonderful acoustic for singing.
In the Round Church you will find the life-size stone effigies of nine knights.







The Chancel was built in 1240. Henry III had signalled his intention to be buried here. (He was in fact buried in Westminster Abbey; one of his sons, who died in infancy, was interred in the Temple.)








The Master of this Temple is Robin Griffith-Jones. He was giving a lecture on the Grail.












He wrote a book to correct the things mentioned by Dan Brown. Joyce bought the book and asked for his autograph. Luckily I did not buy the book..keke. Read abit of it and realised that his style is very colloquial which makes reading tough.









The effigies of the knights...













And lunch at the Queens Chambers in Middle Temple. That's Daniel and Lorraine from Dubai with us!










This is National Gallery, our final stop for the day.











And the beautiful fountain outside it.














The Virgin of the Rocks that is housed in the Gallery. Discovered recently, under UV rays, a hidden painting is actually revealed under the oil painting. As usual, people will always like to know what Leonardo was thinking when he drew this pic, a controversial one during that time.