Today, I headed to Greenwich to visit the Royal Observatory. I decided to take the bus, which stops at the opposite end of the park from the underground. I thought it would be nice to see more of the park by walking across it, and didn't realize I was also doing myself the favor of not having to walk up the steeper slop to the observatory. The park is quite lovely, even if the weather was grey.
The observatory is spread across several buildings, with some cool objects hiding if one hunts around a bit. Like this orrery, tucking into an otherwise horrifying room full of neon.
Or these awesome nautical instruments.
I also climbed up some spiral stairs to see an old telescope.
Are spiral staircases a feature of Christopher Wren buildings?
The other attraction is the Prime Meridian. Obviously, we love crossing imaginary lines. Of course I wanted to stand astride the entire bases of modern timekeeping. It's kind of pricey to get into, but I'd gotten a tip about the line continuing outside of the tickets only area to a sidewalk on the other side of the wall. Turns out to be true.
Then I walked about the park for a bit longer, enjoying the trees and locating a hill that used to be a Roman temple. On the way to the tube station, I wandered through Greenwich and it's market, which was also fun to look about in.
Next, I went to Forbidden Planet and looked around, because of course I did. I had checked in advance, and no events were listed for the London store during my stay. It's a cool store, would stop again.
It's also right by the British Museum, which was next on the list.
This museum is enormous and kind of overwhelming in scale. I'm also a little torn over the collection because there is a lot of stuff that the British Empire just straight up stole during the colonial era. So I spent very little time in the area of Egyptian artifacts, preferring instead the rooms full of time pieces, currency, and books.
And then I was tired and happy to catch a train back to the hotel.
The observatory is spread across several buildings, with some cool objects hiding if one hunts around a bit. Like this orrery, tucking into an otherwise horrifying room full of neon.
Or these awesome nautical instruments.
I also climbed up some spiral stairs to see an old telescope.
Are spiral staircases a feature of Christopher Wren buildings?
The other attraction is the Prime Meridian. Obviously, we love crossing imaginary lines. Of course I wanted to stand astride the entire bases of modern timekeeping. It's kind of pricey to get into, but I'd gotten a tip about the line continuing outside of the tickets only area to a sidewalk on the other side of the wall. Turns out to be true.
Then I walked about the park for a bit longer, enjoying the trees and locating a hill that used to be a Roman temple. On the way to the tube station, I wandered through Greenwich and it's market, which was also fun to look about in.
It's also right by the British Museum, which was next on the list.
This museum is enormous and kind of overwhelming in scale. I'm also a little torn over the collection because there is a lot of stuff that the British Empire just straight up stole during the colonial era. So I spent very little time in the area of Egyptian artifacts, preferring instead the rooms full of time pieces, currency, and books.
And then I was tired and happy to catch a train back to the hotel.
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