A trip to Greenwich - 7/1

Here's another "morning after" posting for you. What I mean by that is the morning after a good night's sleep.

Anyway, Friday was an "off" day. There were no classes, no field trips, and no planned group outings (at least where I was involved). Consequently, I took it fairly easy after a fairly hectic and tiring Thursday. I went out for a morning coffee, spent some time updating the blog, and then went out and bought a fan and a desk lamp, both of which will be very useful while I am here.

After that rather mundane beginning, I decided to take a trip to Greenwich. Henry VIII had been born there as had both of his daughters. Basically, Greenwich was a quiet place outside of London for the royals in the Middle Ages (especially in the Tudor period). It is fairly close to London today, as you'll see, but then it was a country home. To get there, I took a river bus (a boat) down the river Thames. It is interesting that the Thames has been a route of travel for Londoners as far back as ancient times. So, by traveling on the river, I was keeping up a tradition carried on for nearly countless generations.

The first picture today is of the skyline of London from the pier where I caught the boat.

 Here is a close up of the skyline.

The boat really is a river bus, and it made several stops along the river en route to Greenwich. Its first stop was at the London Eye.

This 30 story ferris wheel was built for the millenium, and it takes passengers up over the city for a terrific view. Each of the cars can hold about 30-40 people.

Along the way, we passed under the Milleneum Bridge (for pedestrians only) - above - and the Tower Bridge - below.

We also passed by the Tower of London. It is a castle that was started just after the defeat in 1066 of the Anglo-Saxons by William the Conqueror, the first Norman king of England. It was built within the ruined walls of the original Roman fortress of Londinium, and even incorporated some of those walls into its structure. One has to admit, the Romans built to last! Anyway, the Tower has served as royal residence, prison, treasure house, and today it's a museum.

When I got to Greenwich, one of the first things that I noticed was that the University of Greenwich buildings were built with a large space between them.

That's so the Queen's House (built for Queen Anne- wife of James I, the successor to Elizabeth I) still had a clear view all the way to the river.

Here's a closer picture of the Queen's House.

Walking up the path between the parts of the university, I came upon this marker.

Of course, Greenwich is known for much more than having been a royal retreat in the Tudor and Stewart periods. It is also the home of the Royal Observatory, seen below.

This is the place that is the reason that time zones around the world are figured in relation to Greenwich Mean Time. This observatory is where the Prime Meridien is calcuated, and consequently all other lines of longitude are based on this location. Here is an image of the marker showing where the prime meridien passes through the observatory.

Further, since the observatory sits on a hill, it provides an excellent view.

There is normally a wide green park in the area in the foreground of this picture. However, they are putting in an arena on the park lands that will be used as an Equestrian Park for the 2012 Olympic Games in London.

After my trip to Greenwich, I returned to London to have some late lunch. Meeting up with several of my colleagues, we went to an outdoor venue called Underbelly at Southbank Centre near the London Eye. The entire location is dominated by a very large purple cow that is actually a concert and performance venue. However, around it, there is a garden area with what is essentially an outdoor pub. The following pictures (some with captions) can give you a sense of it all better than I can explain it.

This is one of the staff members in her staff T-shirt. At the top, it says "Cow Crew" with horns and udders on some of the letters. Clearly, purple is an important part of the design scheme here!

Even the direction to the rest rooms is marked with a purple cow. "Loo" is what a rest room is called in Britain.

Still, I had a very good lunch. Here is the wonderful "salt beef" sandwich that I had. Salt beef is what we call corned beef.

Well, after that, it was time to return to the dorm to do some laundry and to relax a bit. I don't yet know where tomorrow's adventure will lead, but we'll see, won't we.