Greenwich River Trip

One of our friends here had suggested that a trip to Greenwhich by boat made a great day out. With fine weather yesterday, we decided to do it. It was a great suggestion and we had a fantastic time. The nice thing about being on the Thames is that it’s almost an overload of major sights as you travel down the river. We got a new perspective on some old favourites that we have seen several times, as well as seeing a range of new things.

Here is a view of the London Eye from the Thames.

St Pauls Cathedral – we really must actually go and “see” this before we leave! We have lots of photos of the dome from various locations though.

I love this photo of the side of the Tate Modern, with the Millenial Bridge in the foreground. There is a graffiti art expo on there at the moment.

The Globe Theatre. We’ve walked past it many times but could never quite get a photo of it. This is on the boat at one of the many docks up and down the Thames where the boats stop all the time.

Jasper takes applying sunscreen very seriously.

The HMS Belfast (now a naval museum) moored in front of the Tower Bridge.

City Hall on the river (the Mayor’s offices). London is full of this really interesting combination of the very modern and the very old.

Passing under the Tower Bridge.

Executioners Dock. The Thames rises around 7.5 metres at the moment between low and high tide. Up to 300 River Pirates were executed here by being chained to the dock at low tide and left for 36 hours. If they survived they could go free.

Another interesting piece of history, this pub is where the Mayflower left for the USA.

Of course Greenwhich nowadays is most famous for the meridian line and Greenwhich Mean Time (GMT), so here is Ella straddling the East and West.

And Jasper, looking suitably sombre for the occasion.

After wondering through the displays and museums in the observatory, we left and as generations have done before us, ran down the grassy hill from the observatory. Ella and Jasper liked this so much that they immediately turned around, ran back to the top and ran down again.We then wandered around the park, stopped at a play ground and then headed off through the markets and took the DLR (Docklands Light Rail) then the Underground to get home. By the end of the day everyone was tired and slept very well, but we all had a great day out.