We headed out from the hotel back towards Greenwich Park where we made a beeline for the National Maritime Museum. I love this place. I visited it with family a few years back and I was keen to take another look around.
There are some wonderful exhibitions covering everything from the role of Trinity House in maintaining our lighthouses to the importance of the oceans in building the British Empire. The displays are heavy on artefacts, which is great if you just want to marvel at the weird and wonderful things that make up the collection.
An interesting part of the Museum at the moment is an area about migration, both to the UK and around the world. Visitors are invited to fill in a card to answer various questions and then hang them on the wall. This was one of my favourites, silly as it is.
Another highlight of the collection is the Baltic Exchange Memorial Glass, formerly, as the name suggests, of the Baltic Exchange in London. This is a huge artwork of stained glass, partially destroyed during WWII and then painstakingly restored in the 1990s. This photo doesn't really do it justice.
A brilliant addition to the Museum is the Compass Card. This is just a little card with a barcode and you can scan it at various points in the Museum to save information to explore later. I've just logged mine on the viewing site and unfortunately some of the things I'd scanned haven't saved, but the bits that have are great. The whole thing links back through to the Museum's online collection so I figure I could easily get lost for hours link hopping through curiosities.
Moccasin belonging to one of the folks who went looking for Franklin's lost expedition, anyone?
Anyway, our trip to the Museum ended with a trip to the shop (obviously). I've acquired the inevitable book - Simon Garfield's On The Map, which is a history of cartography. I love maps. Hence why I also acquired some postcards of old maps to add to my postcard wall.
By this point I was starving hungry. Ugh.
Hopped back on the DLR then, changing at Canary Wharf to make our way over to Stratford. I feel I should mention here that there are a series of bizarre stations on the DLR which are no more than about 100m apart. Very odd standing at one station and being able to see the stop before and the one after.
Got to Stratford without a problem. Unfortunately we then had to find our way through the Westfield shopping centre to find Gemma and Rebecca's friend Jo. I really don't like shopping and the place was heaving. Several wrong turns later we did eventually find our way to Las Iguanas and enjoyed a nice leisurely tapas lunch. Mmmm, tapas. Definitely recommended.
After lunch we bid farewell to Jo and family and headed into the Olympic Park. I actually visited it in 2012 when I went to the Paralympics for the weekend (so awesome), so it was nice to see how it had changed. Here's the Swimming Centre:
Been there. They've taken out the extra seating now though. And here's the stadium itself:
And here is a random photo of a mirrored bridge that we passed when we took a walk down by the river.
Fun times. Anyway, by this point Gemma and I were getting a bit hot and tired so we cut short the walk and headed down to Stratford International Station to catch a train back to Kings Cross. Hurray for having a railcard and getting money off the fare because I was loathe to spend £6 on a train journey that would only last 10 minutes. Point to note: you can't use Oyster cards on the high speed train from Stratford International to Kings Cross.
Bid farewell to Rebecca's friend Huw who'd joined us for the stroll around the park and then it was off back to Kings Cross for the journey home.
All in all, a great weekend. Absolutely knackered by the end of it, but definitely good fun.
No comments:
Post a Comment