Description
A Tower of London early access tour changes the order of the visit: you are inside before the regular visitors arrive. A live English-speaking guide meets you outside the walls and sketches the Tower's thousand years as a royal palace, prison, armoury and place of execution, so the buildings mean something once you walk in.
Then you pass the gates ahead of everyone else for the Opening Ceremony, an old ritual in which the Yeoman Warders, the Beefeaters, unlock the Tower for the day. From there you go straight to the Crown Jewels, which you see without the usual crowds around the cases.
- Crown Jewels in the Jewel House, seen with early entry
- White Tower and Bloody Tower, explored with the audio app
- Tower Green and the Fusilier Museum
After the guided opening, the rest of the visit is yours. The self-guided audio app, available in several languages, takes you around the site at your own speed with narration and lesser-known stories on your phone. The venue does not allow guiding inside the Jewel House and the White Tower, so the audio app covers those parts. The tour includes the headsets used when clear audio is needed. Hotel pickup and tips are not included. It is not suitable for wheelchair users or people with mobility impairments.