Royal Observatory
One of the things that Baba wanted to see while he was here in London was the Royal Observatory in Greenwich. Specifically, he wanted to see the three prototype clocks that were created in order to allow people to keep time aboard ships (and thus be able to chart longitude).
It’s on the other side of London from us, so a few trains later we arrived at the Cutty Sark station and started to make our way through Greenwich Park. It’s always a busy area with tourists and there’s quite a few good reasons. One of which is the top of the hill makes for a great photographic spot with brilliant views of Canary Wharf dominating the skyline.
We did a few portrait shots outside and then paid the admission fee to enter the observatory. It’s an interesting museum of sorts, with an emphasis on nautical history which doesn’t generally interest me. There were some interesting sights to photograph though, so that always keeps me busy.
I think my favourite part of the experience was seeing the green laser that’s projected out along the meridian up close. It’s really intense and you can see it for miles on the top of the hill. It looks rather cool firing through Canary Wharf in the distance if you ask me.
After that, we were off to our favourite pub in London. The Prospect of Whitby is a great old pub that always has excellent ales on tap and the food is pretty good as well. We’re always sitting upstairs in the small room that used to house bare knuckle boxing matches (according to a plaque on one of the walls). They also claim that the table nearest the window in this room was a personal favourite of Queen (or princess? I don’t recall) Anne.
To be honest, they had me at ‘excellent ales’ anyway.
More images of the day in the gallery.
Tags: canary wharf, clocks, family, Greenwich, history, museum