Visiting the Greenwich Observatory

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We got a text from Clive this morning, and after talking to him on the phone, have arranged to try to meat him for a coffee later today.

Our plan for today is to go to the Greenwich observatory where you can stand in booth of the world's hemispheres simultaneously, As well, they have a display on about the North West Passage which my cousin Chris has recommended.

Getting to Greenwich involves taking the DLR line, a local train service that runs past the new developments at the docklands. This area, which includes Canary Wharf, looks completely different from London and much more like Toronto than anything we have seen. Despite the recession, the construction here seems to be continuing.

When we arrived at Greenwich, we walked a short distance along the Thames to a place where they were shooting the movie, Gulliver's Travels. The setting is ideal as the majestic buildings look like they are trapped in a time warp, with little to give away the current era. Using green screen, they had blocked out the river, likely to replace it with a more ancient version without motorboats.

The actual observatory is set on a hill some distance from the river, and so we left the film set and and walked up the gradual slope to the familiar white dome.

Once at the observatory, we got tickets and walked into the courtyard. Here we joined the other tourists taking the obligatory standing in two hemispheres photos.

Next to the prime meridian line, there is a structure marked “Camera Obscura”. When you enter this darkened room, a hole on the ceiling reflected though a mirror projects the scene from outside onto a giant table. With the moving cars in the shot, the effect is quite striking and perfectly demonstrates the concept behind the pinhole camera.

After touring some of Sir Issac Newton's artifacts at the observatory, we headed back down the hill to the Maritime Museum where the exhibit on The Northwest Passage was on. This exhibit is co-sponsored by Canada which was a nice point of connection.

The exhibit was quite well done, explaining the importance of finding the passage as well as lots of information on the Franklin exhibition and many artifacts from the expedition.

After taking the DLR back to the city, we headed to a tube stop near where Clive, Barbara's stepson, works. We called Clive and arrange to meet him near the monument to the 1848 London fire.

I haven't seen Clive Taylor in over twenty-five years, but he was easy to recognize, looking more like his father than when I last saw him (he said the same of me and my father !).

As we were quite close to London Bridge, we took a quick walk out on it and Clive pointed out the various landmarks, many which we had visited but not seen from this angle.

After the bridge, we took a tour through the streets until we reached Leaden Market, a well preserved example of a Victorian market place. The market area stretches about a block in each direction and has some wonderful carved images on the covering that shelters it. Here we stopped for a tea and got to catch up a bit on the past twenty five years. After having tea, Clive walked us back to the tube station where we said goodbye.

Back home, we spent the later part of the afternoon getting school work done (Benjamin finished science for the year) before going downstairs to the internet cafe.

We are flying Ryan Air to Dublin, so I checked in online and printed our boarding passes (if you don't they charge you 40 pounds !) as well as contacting my parents to let them know our plans to return on July 3rd.

On the evening news were details of a tube strike set to start tomorrow evening. Our timing is perfect in leaving London tomorrow morning.

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