Big Ben with Google Earth Tours

Tour Big Ben at the Palace of Westminster, London with Google Earth Tours

Make a virtual field trip the United Kingdom’s most iconic landmark, Big Ben. You will be using Google Earth to watch a pre-recorded tour of the famous Clock Tower at the Palace of Westminster, and its surroundings. Learn all about Big Ben and its place in London.

Making cameo appearances on the trip are the London Eye, Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace, Trafalgar Square, and much more.

The product includes a document of about 25 talking points and interesting facts historic tourist attraction.

The tour is also accompanied by a PDF file that describes what you are seeing based on the corresponding minutes in the video. This is so you can pause the tour at the given time stamp and let the class know what they are looking at.

For example the document says at, “3:02 – 3:15 – This is another close up of Elizabeth Tower with the camera facing west.
* The park behind it is called Parliament Square, a popular tourist site with its 11 statues of famous historical figures. Sir Winston Churchill, Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Gandhi, and Abraham Lincoln are just a few.
* Because of its central and well-known location, it is also a popular meeting place for protests and demonstrations."

The tour begins with a view of Europe from outer space. You are then zoomed in to the site’s locations to see it from a variety of different viewpoints. The angles are chosen so the students can get a good idea of the structure’s location, as well as, its physical relationship to the other landmarks in its vicinity. Finally, you are taken back out to a long shot of Europe.

* Your computer must have Google Earth to watch these tours.

Feel free to visit some other famous landmarks in North America.
1. The Golden Gate Bridge (3:29)
2. Chichen Itza (5:38)
3. Niagara Falls (2:10)
4. Panama Canal (3:02)
5. Statue of Liberty (2:07)
6. Gateway Arch in St. Louis, Missouri (1:06)

Here are some European landmarks.
1. Stonehenge (3:29)
2. The Acropolis (5:38)
3. The Colosseum
4. The Leaning Tower of Pisa
5. The Eiffel Tower (3:15)
6. Big Ben (5:12)

Tour some African sites.
1. The Egyptian Pyramids and the Great Sphinx of Giza (3:15)

Please feel free to email me directly at r_nyg@yahoo.com if you need any assistance.

The cover photo is by Hernán Piñera and has a Creative Commons license. The photo can be found @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/hernanpc/8706453607/

Google Earth Tour Map Attribution

Map Data: Google, Image Landsat / Copernicus
Data SIO, NOAA, U.S. Navy, NGA, GEBCO
Image IBCAO
Image U.S. Geological Survey
© 2016 Inforterra Ltd & Bluesky