What a day! We started the morning at 8 am with breakfast and then headed off to St. Paul's Cathedral for a supertour! St. Paul's is under construction now, like much of everything else in London. We went into the cathedral and were escorted in to a little cathedral off to the side to be introduced to our guide.

Our guide was probably the most entertaining one we have had this whole trip, hands down. He was a hopelessly clueless little old man. We were chosen as a test group to try out a new microphone system, which made the guide a little nervous. I was given an earpiece that was made for someone with dinner plates as ears. It kept falling off and was a little hard to hear out of. The guide wore a microphone like pop stars wear so they can dance and he kept asking "Do I look funny in this?" The funny thing about it was was that he would whisper to the person next to him without realizing that we could all hear because he was speaking into the microphone.

When he was first given the microphone he talked into the control box attached to his waist like a walky talky, not realizing that the thing attached to his head was the microphone. He made the tour very enjoyable.

St. Paul's was masterminded by Christopher Wren, who designed a few other great buildings in London. The cathedral was finished in 1710. The one that is standing today is the fifth cathedral to be built on the site, the fourth one was destroyed in the great fire of London in 1666. I was shocked to hear that Christopher Wren was never trained as an architect, it was just a little bit of a hobby for him. Amazing looking at his wonderful work with the incredible arches and domes.

Wren traveled to Paris to gather ideas for the cathedral and met Panini, the architect of St. Peter's in Rome. Supposedly the buildings are very similar, I don't know I have never seen St. Peter's. At the end of the Victorian era the ceiling in the quire was painted with gorgeous pictures that are kinda hard to make out now. The ceiling is half Byzantine design and half Victorian.

The paintings, mosaics really, were created by piecing millions of tiny tiles together to form a picture. It took 20 years to complete and when it was done the commissioners of it were a little unhappy, claiming that it looked too Catholic. The artist created glittery pictures of trees, fish, and birds to depict the story of Genesis in the bible. No matter the pictures the ceiling is amazing and I loved that way that it looked (that could be because I am a catholic).

Moving on to the Whispering Gallery or dome area. The Whispering Gallery is said to be a fortuitous work of geometry. It is called the Whispering Gallery because when someone whispers into one side of the room a person on the other side can clearly hear what was said, being more than 100 feet away. Amazing! We didn't get to try it because the cathedral was a little crowded. It's cool just the same.

Wren loved conundrums and so instead of just building one dome he built 2, actually 3 with one in the middle to support the 700 ton dome on top. From the inside it appears that you are looking at the dome that you can see from the outside and from the outside it looks like you are looking at the dome you see form the inside. Not so. The domes are completely different and create a really cool effect.

St. Paul's is still used as a house of prayer so no pictures were allowed. It is the seat of the Bishop of London and still has services daily. After taking a tour of the upstairs we wound our way down to the crypt.

The crypt was eerily warm and very crowded with tombs and memorials and such. There is a gorgoues Romanesque tile floor in the crypt built by the Victorians. I was very surprised when I was looking at the monuments and caught a glimpse of George Washington. He has a statue there, a dedication to him and his presidency. It's a little odd to see a memorial to an American president in an English cathedral. After we viewed the crypt our supertour of St. Paul's was complete.

For the afternoon we're heading off to see a matinee of The Taming of the Shrew . This was a great production of a great Shakespeare play. I had seen the Richard Burton/ Elizabeth Taylor version of the play a few years ago and so thought I knew what to expect. I was completely misled by that movie. The play was hilarious with its slap stick comedy and fast talking. The actress that played Kate did a wonderful job of being the shrew; slamming doors, getting into fights, yelling and screaming at everyone. It was a great production.