Greenwich Day Trip

I love Greenwich, so when my Muscovite friend Marina Kelman wanted to go by boat to Greenwich, I decided instantly to go, because I have never been on the Thames river before. I also love being a tour guide, as those who have visited me in Cape Town know, I love taking people around.

I thought we would have to cancel the trip because of grey skies and choppy waters. The trip takes about 70 minutes, it took us from Embankment to Greenwich, as per usual I was not correctly dressed, this time under dressed.

Despite having a guide who had an East End accent which was impossible for Marina and at times for me to understand, it is a brilliant way to get an understanding of the buildings that lie next to the Thames and indeed of the history of this city.

We cruised past buildings I had not been to see in London since I was first here in 1995, the Tower of London, Westminster, Big Ben etc.

The latter part of the journey was not as splendid as the beginning but we got to see where the penthouse from which John Cleese was hung out by his feet in a Fish Called Wanda, the area which inspired Charles Dickens to write Oliver Twist etc.

We eventually got off the boat and went for a walk through the village, my golden rule for travel is always show tourists the local stuff, so we drank an amazing hot cider of apple and cinnamon which did the trick by warming me up for all but two minutes but was useless when I decided to walk up to the Observatory.

The thing that amazes me of London, that no matter how cold the weather or how grey the skies are they are always in the park, there was traffic walking up to the Royal Observatory, this is the place where prime meridian was declared, and obviously where Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) comes from. The great thing is that one can straddle your feet on the line that divides the western and the eastern hemisphere. Alas, the museum was closed, like all other museums and places of interest in Greenwich. We did a great hike through the park; tree lovers and tree huggers would love this park…

Marina had never ever eaten Indian before, and after explaining to her that no self-respecting tourist and gastronomic connoisseur can leave London without sampling Indian food, we ate Indian food…cooked not by Bangladeshis but by Nepalese. Our waitron was beaming because Nepal had just won the Elephant Football World Cup…

Next time I go I will make sure all places are open.

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On the left hand side of the picture below is the park and the National Maritime Museum