We left the house about 11:20 and at the Woking station we got our Day Travelcard for the day, including rail with return for Woking <-> Waterloo and all transit in London.
We are off to meet up with Carmilla at Greenwich. At Waterloo we exited the train and then picked up the Waterloo & City Tube line to take us to the Bank station. At Bank we switched over to the DLR line to take us to Greenwich.
We got off at the Island Gardens stop about 13:00 so we could take in the scenic view, as recommended by Rick Steves, and then take the pedestrian tunnel under the Thymes over to Greenwich. The tunnel was built in 1902, and it was a fascinating feeling to walk under the river. The tunnel was quite long as the Thymes is wide here, and the tunnel slopes downward, then levels off for a while, then slopes up again. Going into the tunnel we walked down the 86 steps of the spiral staircase into the tunnel instead of taking the lift. On the way up the other end we took the lift :-)
The tunnel emerges right at the Cutty Sark. We checked out the Cutty Sark from the exterior but we decided to not pay to go inside, as we had just been on the Victory yesterday, and we were waiting to meet up with Carmilla. About 13:30 Carmilla arrived and we talked and walked about Greenwich. We headed up to the observatory first at the top of the hill.
The Royal Observatory at Greenwich is a very interesting place. We both took our pictures straddling the Prime Meridian (0 degrees latitude) with one foot in each hemisphere. There were great exhibits of the telescopes and scientific equipment which the Astronomer Royals used over the centuries. The observatory was founded in 1675 by King Charles II of the purpose of improving navigation by more accurately charting the night sky. We also visited the camera obscura which is like a precursor of the camera. It is a low tech device which projects a live image from Greenwich onto a flat disk. You enter a small room and close the double set of dark curtains behind you. As your eyes adjust, the image slowly appears on the flat disk in the middle of the small room. We also toured the Flamsteed house where observers lived and it contains an exhibit on the "Longitude problem" and how it was solved, and also are displayed all four of the John Harrison's sea clocks. The fourth clock is the most accurate time piece and is said to be one of the most important inventions of human history.
Before leaving the observatory we took in the scenic view of the Thymes and London for a few photo-ops.
It was not 3:15 so we headed down the hill to go to the National Maritime Museum. Carmilla needed to eat something so she went on to Godard restaurant on the main street and we went into the museum. The main point if interest in this museum is the exhibit on Lord Nelson. We were just on his ship Victory where he was killed yesterday, and today we are at his exhibit. The main item if interest is the uniform, socks and trousers he was wearing when he was shot and killed at Trafalgar. You can clearly see the bullet hole in the left front shoulder. Seeing his blood stained socks was a little troubling and really brought the story home.
After the museum we decided to get something to eat as well, so we found Carmilla and the three os us went to the Meridian The Old Brewery. This is a microbrew with some great beers, and of course we had to have the fish & chips :-) I finally had a great beer in London!
After eating we left to go the show. Carmilla bought us tickets for "The Book of Mormon' show at the Prince of Wales Theatre. We took the DLR to the Heron Quays station to pick up the Jubilee tube. Although the train signs said the Jubilee is there, it is actually at the Canary Wharf station which is about a block away. We found it no problem and took it to Waterloo (there again today) and there we picked up the Northern Line up to the Leicester Square station. We exited there into a mayhem of people. It is Friday night and this is the place Londoners hang out. The streets were full of people. We had time so we walked over to Piccadilly Circus. This is the theater district and activity is everywhere. The crowds were consistent all the way, and everyone was having a good time.
It was time for the show at 7:30 so we headed over to the theatre. The theater was nice and the show was good. Some funny parts and some serious parts, but overall we thought it was a fine show.
The show lasted until about 22:00 and afterwards Carmilla walked us back to the Leicester Square station through the crowds and we said our goodbyes. We took the Northern Line tube back to Waterloo and there picked up the train back to Woking. The 28 minute ride seemed to take two hours as I was so tired. At the station we picked up a Taxi to bring us back to Shelly's flat. We arrive home about 23:00.
Shelly is home now. She had left to go out of town for work on Wednesday morning and she came back tonight, Friday night. She had only been home a short while when we came in.
Tea, shower and bed. It is now 01:14 Saturday morning. zzzzzz
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