Day out at the Tower of London

On a glorious autumn day we had a half-term day out at the Tower of London to see the amazing display of poppies in the moat, unfortunately so did most of the rest of the population! I have never seen crowds like it, we should have known what to expect when we struggled to squeeze on to a tube for Tower Hill. So packed was the station when we got off that all the exits were left open and the announcer was exhorting everybody to exit the station as quickly as possible. Having got there it was almost impossible to get a view of the poppy filled moat as a veritable sea of humanity were all trying to do the same, the railings were lined with people several deep and the queues to get tickets and gain access to the Tower were enormous. Mercifully I'd had the forethought to purchase discounted tickets online a few days earlier and we were able to by-pass all the queues by going to the group entrance where we were granted access without any queuing at all, remarkable!