Had a very good meal at a local Brasserie last night - British all the way - Art had Shepard's pie and I had Welsh Rarebit. Both meals were excellent and, for England, very reasonably priced! Although we certainly knew that prices are very high here, we continue to be surprised as just how high!
Today we're off to Greenwich on the River Red Rover boat on the Thames! It's cloudy with reports of 62 degree highs and partial sun this afternoon. So we decided to take them at their words and head out with hopes of no rain today.
We had a wonderful hour long boat ride with funny commentary all the way to Greenwich. The weather cleared and it turned into a sunny, beautiful day. Link to lots of pictures (including a 2 part rainbow on the way back - if you look closely :)). We walked through the campus of the University of Greenwich and the Royal Naval College, stopped in the Painted Hall where they were having a posh private party - but we saw the paintings and took pictures anyway. Then visited the Chapel before going over to the National Maritime Museum. We spent several hours enjoying the model ships, Nelson's wars stories including the bloody uniform that he was wearing when he was mortally wounded, saw restored stain glass windows that were destroyed during the war and painstakingly pieced together, and a few other exhibits. Then visited the Queen's House which was a school for sons and daughters of British seamen (until 'dangerous' things happened and then it became a school for just the sons!). Finally, we climbed up a very steep path - my knees and feet talked to me about it all night - to the Observatory to stand on the Prime Meridian. We've now straddled the Equator (0 Latitude) in Ecuador and 0 Longitude in Greenwich :) The views down to the river and beyond were fabulous and the exhibits including original telescopes still in place from the time of the first national Astronomer (he had to pay for his own equipment on a small salary) and the original clocks that were developed to measure longitude...were quite impressive.
We stayed until 4 PM when we realized that to make the 4:25 PM boat back to Westminster we had to hurry down the steep path and walk over to the dock. Whew! we were the last ones on the boat. Not really a problem since there was another one in 1/2 hour....but we were ready to get back to our cocktail hour in the Exec. Lounge....spoiled we are and loving it!. Chatted with some folks for awhile, then went out to a local Italian restaurant, visited a bit with our new friends from Charlotte and crashed! A wonderful day with unusually good weather. Here for 4 days with rain on only one!!
Today's picture: http://picasaweb.google.com/spengle/20101027#
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Hope the weather has held and that you enjoyed the Thames "cruise" as much as we did when we took it. It's such fun to look at your pix and remember things we saw last Feb. I check each morning to see what's new with the two you :)
ReplyDeleteMarilyn