On each trip to England, I've wanted to go to Greenwich to see the place that is so important to the keeping of time, and on this trip I finally went. As is the case with so many places, this seemed like a simple little side trip from London. That is, until we got there. Had our legs been willing, we could have spent a very full day there.
We totally skipped everything about the Royal Naval College which is located there (or, as the Brits would say, "sited there"). Our first stop was the National Maritime Museum.
I wasn't expecting to like it because I just don't have an appreciation for maritime paintings. I can appreciate a half dozen or so, and then my enthusiasm ebbs, so to speak. How many clipper ships under full sail in breaking waves can you take at one time? I usually find my limit fairly soon. I have trouble discerning a bark from a brigantine, so perhaps I should spend a bit more time and patience to learn about them. (or, not)
So, suffice it to say that I was surprised that I could have easily spent a couple of hours wandering around the Maritime Museum.
Larry wanted to visit the museum because of the special exhibit of JMW Turner's sea paintings. (Full disclosure: I am not a fan of Turner. Or, Constable, or Church, etc. I don't care for genre painting.) I felt as though I was merely tagging along, again.
The paintings were just so-so, I thought, not worth the trip. Larry liked them, so it was a wash.
What I liked was the rest of the museum. Here's what I would have been transported in if I was royalty a couple of hundred years ago.
Let's just assume that I would have to save it for special occasions, not for going out to meet friends.
There were many artifacts from the English's rich history of supremacy on the seas. I could have wandered around for quite a while, but we needed to move on.
The park in which the museum resides is also the home to what I wanted to see: the Royal Observatory.
And so, Greenwich Mean Time! I mistakenly thought that the time zone changed right there and that part of England would be on one time and the rest of England would be an hour ahead (or behind, depending upon your point of view). It turns out that all of England is on the same time, yet Greenwich theoretically marks the demarcation between East and West -- right here.
Needless to say, just about everyone had their photo taken with them straddling the line. Some folks chose to be immortalized pointing to their home city on the marker on the line in front of the sculpture. As for me, I have great patience in waiting for everyone to leave so that I can take my photos totally devoid of other travelers.
On to the third and last site of the day, the famous Cutty Sark which was, at the time that it was built, the fastest ship in the world. It was first engaged in the tea trade, shipping English goods to the Far East and shipping tea back to England.
The ship was sold a few times over the nearly two hundred years of its existence, each time being retrofitted for the next use. After the tea trade, it was used to transport sheep's wool, then general cargo. Finally it was purchased for the purpose of becoming a museum, which of course, it is today. It is now in dry dock, safely restored and open to the public.
It has a collection of maritime objects, the most interesting of which (to me) was the collection of ship's figureheads, all restored and brightly painted. Not all of them were lovely to behold, but they were all wonderful to look at.
This ship must have been very impressive when under sail.
In fact, it was pretty impressive when just sitting there.
By the time that we had our afternoon tea, the ship's museum was about to close. Back to our flat for dinner.
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