Tower of London, Tower Bridge, River Boat, and Wicked

This morning we wanted to leave early enough to be among the first to enter the Tower of London when it opened at 9:00 a.m.  We arrived at the Tower Hill Underground station and walked up the steps to see the Tower of London directly in front of us.  We could see the Tower Bridge on one side of it and the Shard on the other side.  I loved it immediately.  We spoke with one of the Yeoman at the gate who gave us some recommendations.  After taking a picture with him we went straight to the Crown Jewels.  We then visited the White Tower and the rest of the buildings.  It was one of the highlights of our trip.  Very few people were there and the weather was perfect.  It began to be crowded by the time we were finished.  We went to the Tower Bridge and took the elevator to the top to walk across the sky walks with windows looking down on the street below.  We ate lunch at The Vault, a pub located below the south end of Tower Bridge.  We sat in the beer garden at a table with a view of the bridge and boats passing by on the river.  We boarded an Uber clipper boat and traveled to East London, and then returned to Westminster.  We returned to Notting Hill for a brief rest, and then we got ready for Wicked.  Wendy had seen it advertised.  We looked it up and there were still good tickets left.  It was a spur of the moment decision, but we were so glad we did go to it.  It was a fantastic performance with a live orchestra.  The musical finished after 10:00 p.m. and we returned home by double decker bus.