Ceremony of the Keys

March 20th, 2009 by carolyn

In October 2008, my parents were due to visit London and my mom had a special request.  She asked us to get tickets to the Ceremony of the Keys at the Tower of London.  I had not heard of the Key Ceremony so I looked into it.  The Ceremony is the nightly routine to lock up the Tower of London and has taken place every night without fail for over 700 years.  It even happened nightly during WWII as bombs were falling on London.  So, we wrote off for the free tickets and were sent 4 for one of the nights during my parents trip.  Unfortunately, they weren’t able to come in October 2008 so my friends Nicola and Rachel joined Matt and I on the scheduled night.
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Fortunately my parents were able to reschedule their trip so in March 2009, we were able to go again with my parents.  Here is a spooky shot of the Tower at night during their visit.
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Each evening had a different character but the ceremony is the same every night.  The Tower, the Jewels and all the residents are locked in at 10:00 pm sharp.