Spanish lesson consumed, I headed off to the station with Rebecca, caught the train, acquired Gemma at Scunthorpe and then carried on down to London. Much boredom ensued - train journeys are relaxing, but not all that interesting. Woo.
Arrival in London resulted in the inevitable "yay, no Oyster Card" discussion. Fortunately Gemma's got a contactless card, so I've commandeered her Oyster Card. Makes travelling on the Underground so much easier. Why didn't I think of this before? Also met up with Rebecca's friend Huw and then set off in search of adventure.
I say adventure... what actually happened was that we got on the Tube heading for Embankment and got off at Charing Cross because I can't stand the Tube. Clarification here: I'm really not very tall, I do not cope well with crowds, the Tube has been known to well and truly freak me out. Oh, and I have this weird irrational fear that the doors will open while the train's in the tunnel and someone will fall out. I know this is irrational and highly unlikely (the logical part of my brain thinks I'm being an idiot) but it doesn't help.
Ahem, anyhoo...
So we hopped off at Charing Cross and took the very short walk down to the Embankment. Someone had suggested we took a boat trip down the river since we were staying in Greenwich. Sounded like a great plan to me. So we joined the queue for tickets. For 15 minutes. In the sun. With no suncream. I'm amazed I'm not bright pink. And then we joined another queue. In the sun. With no suncream. For 20 minutes. Huw went and found us ice cream, which rather made up for the heat. And then we joined yet another damn queue.
Fortunately this was the last one and we finally made it aboard one of the Thames Clippers. £7.15 for a single ticket (if you don't have an Oyster Card). Not bad considering how far down the river it takes you - about 7 miles from Embankment down to Greenwich Pier. It's also a really lovely way to see the city, as demonstrated in this wonderful series of photos. Yes, I know some of the horizons are wonky - let's see you take perfect photos from the deck of a speeding catamaran.
Well, that's two of Torchwood's sites I've seen. I jumped up and down on the perception filter in Cardiff, but they wouldn't let me in.
Moving on. Having admired London from the water, it seems oddly apt that we then headed into Greenwich with it's maritime heritage. The first real stop of our trip was the Old Royal Naval College (free entry! Yay!) and its beautiful Painted Hall.
I think the photo makes it clear that the Painted Hall does what it says on the tin - almost the entire thing is painted. Even the columns are painted to give the impression of carving - they're completely flat, but at first glance it's very convincing.
Across the way from the Hall is the Chapel, which is lovely, but not quite so impressive. Personally, I found the two memorials in the foyer more interesting.
The first is to Franklin's lost expedition to the Arctic in 1845. History time: Franklin went to explore the last section of the Northwest Passage, the two ships got icebound and everyone on board, 129 people, died. Little traces were found in the intervening years and finally one of the ships, HMS Erebus, was located in 2014.
The second is to the convoys operated during the Second World War.
The Old Royal Naval College itself is a gorgeous building - I'd quite like to explore some more of it if I get the chance.
Oh, and for the film fans, this building turns up in the second Thor film. And promptly gets wrecked. Such a shame...
Flying visit to the College over, we headed on up the hill intent on visiting the Royal Observatory. Timed to perfection, evidently, because just as we reached the National Maritime Museum at the bottom of the hill, the Time Ball dropped to mark 1pm. Here's a close up of it from later in the day.
The Time Ball was used back in the day when clocks were needed to determine longitude at sea - sailors moored on the Thames would use the dropping of the Time Ball up on the hill to set their clocks to the right time so that they could make accurate measurements of their position once they got out into the ocean. More on this later.
Bit of a trek up the hill, given how warm it was. Made it up to the Observatory in the end though and went for a wander around the exhibition. Some amazing old timepieces and of course the wonderful timekeepers of John Harrison.
John Harrison should be a bit of a local hero around Northern Lincolnshire. He grew up in Barrow on the south bank of the Humber and was a carpenter by trade. He also had a fascination with clocks, later to prove useful when the Longitude Act was passed in order to find a solution to the Longitude Problem.
The problem was this: finding latitude while at sea had been fairly easy for centuries, but longitude proved more difficult. As such, when long distance voyages became more common, it became necessary to find a way round this. One way of doing this was to measure the time difference between your position at sea and a fixed point - say, London. If you knew what time it was in London and what time it was where you were, you could work out the longitude.
Unfortunately, this hinged on having with you an accurate clock telling the time in London and at the time of the Longitude Act no such clock existed. John Harrison set out to build such a clock. Here's the first attempt, H1:
The Board of Longitude obviously found it promising, because they funded work into further timekeepers. Harrison produced H2 and H3, was rewarded some more and then created this beautiful object, H4:
H4 was brilliant. It was accurate and kept time even in rough seas. It's the first accurate marine chronometer and it's such a shame Harrison isn't more well known in his home patch.
Well, that was a bit of an extended ramble about keeping time at sea...
Moving on.
By this point it was becoming apparent that all the science and history wasn't really to Rebecca's liking, but I did at least manage to drag both her and Gemma up the old Observatory tower to have a look at this lovely telescope.
I think by then we were all just a little bit worn out - it had been an early start and gone 2pm and we still hadn't had any lunch, so we toddled off down to the cafe. Expensive, but to be expected in such a touristy area.
Took a nice walk back down the hill through Greenwich Park to the Cutty Sark, where we left Huw for a while. Woo, pictures of the Cutty Sark. Somewhere else I would have liked to have a look around if we'd had the time.
Rebecca then got her first taste of the DLR. I'm not sure she was entirely convinced. Personally I find it much more pleasant than the Tube - not as busy for a start. Does make some funny noises sometimes though...
Checked into the hotel, refreshed tired feet and grabbed a cuppa before Huw joined us again and we headed out for the evening. We took the scenic route - DLR to Canary Wharf, stroll through Canary Wharf to Poplar DLR Station, DLR to Royal Victoria on the north bank. From there we hopped on the Emirates Air Line, the cable car over the Thames. A nice little detour - it's not overly expensive and there's commentary included on the 10 minute crossing. Another lovely way to see a bit more of London - first time I'd seen the Thames Barrier, for example.
Safely back on the ground, where Rebecca was much happier, we strolled over to the O2 - another place I'd never been - and went in search of tea. We were planning on going to a gig at the Brooklyn Bowl, so that was of course the obvious place to grab some food. Considering what a tourist trap it must be, the prices weren't bad and the food was great. Would definitely recommend.
The gig was also good. A brass band by the name of Old Dirty Brasstards who play covers of pop songs. So much fun and helped along by a couple of pints of fairly decent cider (expensive by my standards).
Having missed out on the cliched photo on the Greenwich Meridian at the Observatory, I grabbed this last shot of Gemma and Rebecca on the Meridian Line outside the O2 - had to be done!
All in all, a lovely day and a great evening. Day 2 recap will be coming later in the week.
No comments:
Post a Comment