We decided it had been awhile since we had been to London so we headed down to visit Greenwich (pronounced gren-ich), home of the Prime Meridian and one of the million places in London we haven't seen yet. We hopped on one of the river cruises next to Tower of London and rode it all the way to Greenwich and learned a lot from the commentary. Did you know that the word "WHARF" means WareHouse At the River Front? Also that the Mayflower boat (that came back from dropping off the pilgrims) was run aground in the River Thames in London and now there is a pub at the sight called the Mayflower. There is also this crazy looking apartment building that looks like its a bunch of little boxes all piled up because the owner wanted to make sure that every apartment had a "river view" there for could charge a higher price...there is a man who knew how to maximize his space for the money.
We had a little picnic on the stairs right next to the dock and let Addison run around a bit before we went on a big walk up to the Royal Observatory. She befriended a little boy and they were telling each other all about the boat rides and showing each other where they were on the map.
Just along the pier was also an International Food Fair/Market which Kevin and I love to look around in. We saw loads of things like a huge circular grill (about 6 feet diameter) cooking foot long brats, German sausage, loads of Indian curries but some of my favorite things are the sweeties. I love meringues and this booth was selling all different types like praline, almond, vanilla, chocolate, strawberry and more.
Another thing we often see at English fairs and markets are the roast pork and stuffing sandwiches. They have a spit roasting a whole hog and they cut off the meat and then you get a bun with pork, sage stuffing and applesauce on it to eat.
We also checked out the Greenwich market which seemed a lot like the Covent Garden market with loads of booths selling arts and crafts type things from necklaces to pashminas to paintings/photos to clocks made out of flattened beer bottles to my favorite eye catcher...Japanese rice bowls that had two little holes near the top where your chop sticks slide in and then a rest on the other side for the ends. I so want some of those...my Christmas wish list has started.
After leaving the market, we stumbled across Nauticalia the "First Shop in the World" at 0 degrees 0 minutes and 4 seconds longitude.
Greenwich Park was beautiful and it looked like a nice escape from "the city." We walked up a crazy, wicked steep hill to get to the top where the observatory was but the view back down on the National Maritime Museum was beautiful with London city skyline in the back ground.
Addison and her obsession with telescopes gave us a nice break from out walk up the hill. We never pay to actually let her see something, but she has fun pretending. I thought it was cool to see the 02 Center in the background. This is the closest I had been to it...Kevin didn't seemed to impressed but I think it looks cool.
There are lots of things to see at the observatory. They have a huge 24 hour clockthat is set to Greenwich Mean Time and is accurate to 0.5 seconds and was installed back in 1852 (thats pretty old and it still keeps excellent time). Also below the clock are the Public Standards of Measure blocking out the British yard, one foot, two feet, six inches and three inches. They were first mounted around 1866 and used to measure the accuracy of people's rulers. There is also a benchmark line for surveyors for 152 feet above mean sea level...I'm not sure what the significance of that number but they seem to be all about setting standards at Greenwich.
Also the telescope that was used by William Herschel who first discovered Uranus in 1781.
Here we are standing at the beginning and end of the world as we know it on the Prime Meridian - 0 degrees 0' 0". We are actually facing back towards the observatory which holds the "Transit Circle" telescope (built in 1850) which at the cross hairs of its lens defines Longitude 0 0' 0". Since the 19th century the Prime Meridian has also served as the point of GMT (Greenwich Mean Time) which now most places around the world use as the standard for their own local times. It wasn't until 1884 when delegates from around the world came together and chose GMT to be the Prime Meridian that there was any standard on which time was measured and with more and more international travel going on everyone needed to start being more consistent. By 1884 the US was already using GMT as the standard time and 72% of world commerce depended on sea charts that used GMT as the 0 degree longitude.
One thing that we missed because we were doinking around in the market it was the dropping of the time ball. At 13:00 (1PM GMT) there is a big red that raises and drops to signify the time. It is the only time of the day that it does this and was one of the earliest means of public time signaling. 
We had to wait in a pretty long queue to stand on the meridian for our picture, but the line more than doubled shortly after we got our pictures taken as you can see behind Kevin. You can see the dome as well on top of the observatory behind Kevin which is what holds the huge telescope. It took astronomers hundreds of years to determine the exact spot for today's Prime Meridian and actually there are two other lines that were discovered previously - one a couple meters away and another about 100 meters away.
We left the observatory and headed down to the Greenwich Park playground which was perfect sized equipment for Addie. She had a blast along with the 100+ other kids who were playing there as well. Harry even had fun, not so much when he had to share with his big sister but they had fun.
Next we snuck off to the National Maritime Museum where we got to see lots of old naval equipment and items. One exhibit that was really cool was all the different types of uniforms used by the Royal Navy throughout time. Addison liked to open and close the doors but I caught her with some of the doors open. As we were ready to head home, we noticed that it was a torrential downpour outside so we had to wander around some more, but final figured it wasn't going to stop so we headed back towards the pier with our big golf umbrella.
We ate supper at a place call the Dicken's Inn which I later found out was quite a posh place to eat back in the St. Katherine's Pier which is known as a ritzy yacht marina. The Dicken's Inn is a former brewery dating back to the 18th century.
You can see all the really nice boats that are back in the tiny marina and as we walked over the little foot bridge that crosses the opening of the pier you wonder how in the heck they get back there...someone has got some mad boat driving skills to do that.
We went to the second floor where they serve pizza. We were pretty adventureous and thought we'd try a pizza that had all the goodies that would go on Crispy Duck Pancakes...well, with the mind set that you are eating a pizza but you think you are also eating crispy duck...the two just didn't mesh in my mind and mouth. I did eat it but it wasn't a combination I thought should got together.
We had a nice, LONG and wet day in London as we didn't end up getting home until about 10:30 that night...we LOVE London!!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment