Historic Greenwich on Foot

My sidekick for this excursion was Gary Miller -- both Susan and Rita stayed on the ship packing for our return flights tomorrow.

In cloudy weather, temperature in the high 60s, we were able to dress lightly. Halfway through our walking tour, however, the spectre of rain hung over us. Fortunately, it never came, and we completed the 2-hour tour without the need for rain protection.

First we took an UberBoat from the ship to the Greenwich pier just 150 yards away (my guess). There we met our guide, Cosette, who said she has lived in Greenwich for 40 years and knows and loves it. Here are some of the sites we saw. The Cutty Sark, now a museum, was at the dock. We didn’t go inside. She told us “Cutty Sark” means short shirt.

Next to the Cutty Sark was the visitor’s center:

Next to that was the Old Royal Naval College:

On a hill in the distance was the Greenwich Observatory, home of Greenwich Mean Time and the Prime (zero degrees longitude) Meridian, but we didn’t visit it.

However, Cosette pointed out a sign showing the Prime Meridian passing through Greenwich village:

On the street below the sign were some dots showing the track of the Prime Meridian:

At one point we encountered a group of cute little electric vehicles:

Being Sunday, the streets, restaurants and other hot spots were crowded with locals, not just tourists. Here’s one hot spot, Trafalgar Tavern, which is right next to the river.

Before leaving Greenwich, I checked out the 1902 pedestrian tunnel under the Thames between Greenwich and the other side of the river. Here’s the entrance in Greenwich and the identical entrance on the other side of the river:

Here’s the plaque above the entrance in Greenwich:

And here is a video I took while descending the 100 steps below the entrance, then the video I took at the bottom. (I did not cross the river.) There is an elevator in the middle, but it was not working.

Then it was time to board the UberBoat and return to the ship.

The packing almost complete, we watched a “Destination Performance” in the Star Theater by Libera, “an all-boy English vocal group founded by the late Robert Prizeman. Libera performs concerts in many countries, including the UK, the US and throughout Asia, and often makes recordings for their own album releases and other projects,” according to Wikipedia. Pictures and video were not allowed tonight, but here’s a video from their website:

After dinner, I am taking a 1.5-hour Thames River cruise, while Rita makes sure we’re ready to put our suitcases outside our stateroom at 10 p.m. This post is already rather long, so I won’t wait to post any pictures or videos from the river cruise. Maybe tomorrow while at Heathrow or in the air….

Tomorrow, we begin a 105-day break from the world cruise, which we will finish in August/September with a cruise from Stockholm to Montreal. It doesn’t seem right to call it a “world cruise” without crossing the Atlantic, does it?

I’ll keep this substack account alive and add to it on that cruise, which starts August 26 in Stockholm. We fly to Stockholm a week early to spend time with my sister Janet, who lives nearby with her husband of 50+ years, Staffan.

Bye for now!