Greenwich

 

Greenwich had been on my list for a while for visiting.  I tried in 2016 when I took my first sabbatical, but, foolishly, I hadn't looked up the opening and closing times.  So many things here in England close at 5pm, and many don't open until 10am, so it feels like a pretty small window to fit things into - especially if needing to travel across town to get to more than one location.  The good news is that I did get in this time!  The picture above is of The Great Equatorial Telescope, which is in the larger dome of the observatory.

The picture above is of the smaller dome with Flamsteed House in the background and was taken from just outside the larger dome.

In the pictures above and below I have one foot in the eastern hemisphere and one foot in the western hemisphere as I straddle the prime meridian.

The pictures above and below are of Flamsteed House - former home of the Royal Astronomers.  The red ball drops in order to give accurate time to ships in the Thames.

Between the house and the observatory is a recently created and very clever sundial in which the gnomon is the space between the tails of two sculpted dolphins.  I found it to be very accurate and very easy to read - as well as quite elegant!

Within the building that houses the Royal Observatory are museums (or perhaps it is just one museum, but it seems like multiple museums).  As is the case with so many places I am visiting on this trip, I wish I had time to just take in ALL of what is available here.  These particular museums include a history of time-keeping devices and the longitude problem.  I'll include some sample pictures, but there was just so much here that I can't begin to describe it well at all.  What follows is really just the smallest of samples of what caught my eye from one single room.

I am behind on my blogging - as this was yesterday's trip - but I'm going to throw in a picture from today because it includes a device of the same kind as the above, which I don't think I would have noticed had I not seen it yesterday.  The is a 1533 painting by Hans Holbein the Younger from the National Gallery.

The Royal Observatory was the focus today, but there is much more to see in Greenwich, so I'll just post images in order from the rest of the day as I made my way downhill from the observatory to the Thames.

A view from the observatory above, and a view back up toward it below.

Heading toward the Queen's House and the art gallery housed there.

This gallery is very large, so I'm just including what captured me most, which is the Armada Portrait of Queen Elizabeth I.

The Royal Naval College

The National Maritime Museum, and the biggest ship in a bottle that I have ever seen!!

Cutty Sark - in 1869 was one of the last tea clippers to be built, and one of the fastest.

You can climb in the rigging!  I think my brother would LOVE this!

As I made my way down the hill, I had quite a specific goal, which was to get to the Italian Restaurant near the Thames that I had eaten at 6 years before.  Here is my view from Zizzi - which gave me the idea of taking a ferry back to Westminster rather than light rail followed by the tube.  I found out from the waiter that my Oyster card works for this transport as well!  Yea!

Awesome lasagna - really, really good!

Here's the view back toward Cutty Sark and Zizzi after boarding the ferry.

And here are some pictures of the cruise from Greenwich Pier to Westminster Pier - with many familiar landmarks along the way (not all pictured) - Tower of London, London Bridge, Globe Theatre, St. Paul's Cathedral, Tate Modern, Millennium Bridge, London Bridge, London Eye, Elizabeth Tower, etc.

I may post some videos of the trip in a few days - but for now to bed!  Big day tomorrow and signs of a sore throat coming on - kinda scary these days!!