The London's Da Vinci Code Trail: Westminster Abbey

We paid £17 for the entrance fee (student £7, adult £10). For us, the fee was quite expensive but there is no other Westminster Abbey except this one hehhehe. This building was founded in the 10th century. Since this building is a working church, visitors therefore are not allowed to take photos. Westminster Abbey also is memorial and burial places of several well-known and unknown English people (such as the grave of the unknown warrior).

Excerpt from the book (Chap 97): 'More than three thousand people are entombed or enshrined within Westminster Abbey. The colossal stone interior burgeons with the remains of kings, statesmen, scientists, poets and musicians. Their tombs, packed into every last niche and alcove, range in grandeur from the most regal of mausoleums - that of Queen Elizabeth I, whose canopied sarcophagus inhabits its own private, apsidal chapel - down to the modest etched floor tiles whose inscriptions have worn away with centuries of foot traffic, leaving it to one's imagination whose relics might lie below the tile in the undercroft.'

While locating for the tomb of Charles Darwin, it was quite ironic for us later to discover that we had actually stood on his grave few times. His tomb is just next to Issaac Newton's burial place but we missed the tomb few times. We didn't expect his tomb to be so simple and plain (and on the walking path area) unlike others. Actually we were quite suprised to discover that Charles Darwin's tomb is also in the Westminster Abbey. After all of his controversial claims about the theory of evolution, I thought he is an atheist. I wonder what triggered the decision to bury him in this building. If you want to check out the photo of the tomb, click here and here. The blogs also have some information about the history behind the burial of Darwin at Westminster Abbey.

Anyway, the tomb of Isaac Newton is the main focus in this book.

Excerpt from the book (Chap 97): 'Alone again, he stepped closer to the tomb, scanning it from bottom to top. He began with the clawed feet beneath the sarcophagus, moved upward past Newton, past his books on science, past the two boys with their mathematical scroll, up the face of the pyramid to the giant orb with its constellations, and finally up to the niche's star-filled canopy.'

To be continued ....