Monday-Wednesday, May 8-10 – Greenwich, England

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Monday-Wednesday, May 8-10 – Greenwich, England 

Monday

Arrived around 3:00 a.m. and are tied to a floating dock in the middle of the Thames River in the London Borough of Greenwich. It requires a shuttle boat to get to shore. But the ride is only about 5 minutes between the ship and the pier. 

Around 1:30 a.m. I woke up for some reason and decided to look outside to see where we were. It happened that we were sailing through the Thames Barrier. This is a flood control system that is triggered by extremely high tides or storm surges coming in from the North Sea. It is not a flood control for excessive rain outflows. I went back to bed and woke about 6:00 a.m. I’m looking forward to seeing them on our sail away.

There is a link towards the end of the blog that explains these things. Fascinating

 

I’ve got a walking tour of Greenwich this morning – Russ is staying back. The walk is very nice. We get the history of the Cutty Sark, and the buildings on the south bank of the river. The Greenwich Palace was located here originally, later torn down and an “old sailors’ home” was built in the late 17^th century. That was turned into the Royal Naval College in 1873. Today, the Naval College is still here, one of the other buildings is Trinity College of Music. It is also a popular set for movies including Four Weddings and a Funeral and The King’s Speech.

A tri masted clipper known as a "tea Clipper" as they were used for getting tea from southeast Asia as quickly as possible. It wasn't used for long before other, more efficient, means of transport took over.

There is a great tale about the masthead and the name of the ship. Too long to relate here.

Trinity School of music.

The whole complex as viewed from our ship.

Queens House is back center

Sea Cadets were drilling and then participating in a parade due to the coronation.

Possibly similar to the ROTC in the US

Queens House

Royal Observatory

Prime Meridian

Deviding line for east and west hemispheres.

 

We also saw the exterior of The Queens House started in 1616, and on top of the hill behind you could see the Royal Observatory. It is from this point that all time is measured. You can also stand at a point where one foot is in the Western hemisphere and one foot in the Eastern. Then back to the ship.

This evening, we had our final "destination performance". The Boy's Choir by the name of Libera performed for us. They were amazing. They ranged from 4' to 6', but all of the voices fit beautifully. What a treat.

 

Tuesday

Today is the end of the World Cruise. Most of our fellow World Cruisers are getting off the ship. Most are flying home. Some are moving on to private extensions of a few or more days. Abut 26 people (we think) are staying on for one or more additional segments. The Atrium is an absolute zoo. Last night I stepped into the hall to see suitcases outside all the rooms (except ours).

All bags are required to be tagged and in the hall by 10:00 p.m.

It will be our turn in a couple more weeks.

 

Then for a while, all was quiet. By 11:00 a.m. there was a steady stream of new passengers coming aboard. For the most part, they looked tired and a little lost. For many, this is their first time on a Viking Ocean ship.

 

It was an early night for us and lights were out a little after 8:00 p.m.

 

Wednesday

Another clear morning. The Thames has significant tidal changes which makes it very interesting during the day to watch the water along the shore. In fact, we must time our sail-away this afternoon to catch the tide. 

Around 11:00 a.m. we got ashore to wander around a bit in Greenwich and are hoping to score lunch at the Greenwich Marketplace. It is supposed to be full of eateries. The Marketplace isn’t quite what we anticipated. Lots of little shops and vendors selling from tents like a flea market. But certainly not flea market prices. Most of the eateries are food trucks. Quite a variety of choices. We split what looked like a burrito filled with polenta and veges. Not bad, not great.

I had spotted a bank with an ATM on my walk-about a couple of days ago. We’d like to get some British Pounds just to have a little cash on hand for the next couple of weeks. That accomplished, we continue to walk and stumble upon a corner bakery. They had all sorts of sandwiches, hand pies, quiche, and bread on display and they were quite busy. We bought a chicken and chestnut hand pie (like a turnover). It was great and only 5 pounds or about $6.00 but worth every bit of that!

Our "hand pie" - chicken & chestnut  YUM

 An easy walk back to the shuttle to the ship. There is a gathering this afternoon at 4:30 for sail-away on the Aquavit Terrace. It took a bit longer to get completely unhooked from the various tiedowns, but finally we were underway. The sun is out, but we can see rain clouds moving in. It was very interesting to see both banks of the Thames in the daylight and we once again sailed through the Thames Barrier. A fascinating piece of engineering. Here’s a link for more information. Thames Barrier - Wikipedia.

City of London is in the distance. Really not all that far away.

This whole area used to be docks. The revitalization project did a marvelous job. It was a lovely neighborhood in which to be anchored.

The Thames Barrier in daylight. 

These structures are almost as tall as our ship.

We had a pretty good downpour on our way down the Thames. It has moved on and left us with a beautiful sunset.

 

Tomorrow we are back in Dover.