Greenwich Park Views and the Meridian

Actual date of this event: 30 June

Sunday was HOT! By hot, I mean 79 degrees. If it is warm enough for me to wear shorts, sweat, and get sunburned, then yes, it is hot! I have come to realize I am definitely a cold climate gal - I can still recall the miserable hot weather from Houston/Louisiana, but have a difficult time recalling the miserable cold from Aberdeen which occurred only 4 months ago.

Luke and I headed to Greenwich Park (pronounced grenn-itch) for the first time since our arrival to London. We had heard it was really nice park, so we packed a backpack with water and a beach towel to enjoy the sun. Plus, the park houses a really really cool thing (keep reading and you'll find out what that is!). We walked around in the town first, then made our way to the park. Greenwich is a really cute area, and it's super close to the river. There are a variety of pubs, restaurants, shops, and a few markets available, so there is plenty to do other than the park.

We came across the Cutty Sark ship which sailed from 1869 until 1954. It cost around £12 to enter and explore the ship, and we decided to save that for another day. That didn't stop us from taking pictures though.

The ship is located right on the River Thames across from Canary Wharf. From this area, you can get some pretty nice views of London. We could see the London Eye and The Shard in the distance.

Then, we walked through the grounds of the Old Royal Naval College, which is now used for a variety of things. Way back when, the site was the home of Greenwich Palace, which was the birthplace of King Henry VIII and his daughters Queen Mary I and Queen Elizabeth I.

As we crossed Romney Road, we came across the Maritime Museum. Behind the museum were the open fields of some of Greenwich Park. We could see the Royal Observatory up on the hill, which was our the secondary focus of our trip to Greenwich Park.

As we walked along the paths, we passed a small pond which had tons of paddle boats. It was a really small pond and kinda ridiculous to paddle boat in, even for just one paddle boat. Anyway, we climbed up the hill to the Royal Observatory passing through lots of green!

Eventually, we reached the top of the hill and OH.MY.GOODNESS. Such beautiful views!! Really, one of the best places to see London!

Not only did we have fantastic views that we wanted to gawk at for ever and ever, but we also wanted find 0° aka The Prime Meridian! Yes, we wanted to find the line and put one foot in the Eastern Hemisphere and one foot in the Western Hemisphere! We had seen signs to enter the Royal Observatory, which had an admission fee. I was pretty bummed because I didn't want to pay to split my body between two hemispheres. So I took pictures from outside of a gate where other people were doing the über touristy activity. Then, I saw it. Through a free gate, a line where I could take a picture. Yay! So so cool! Really cool!!

1.) ignore my white legs, 2.) Luke was not ready and people were waiting - oops!

After that, we did a little bit more walking around before laying down the towel and enjoying the views of the city from the hill. It was a beautiful day, and it looks like everyone was enjoying just it just as much as us!

We got so caught up in the views from the northern area of the park that we didn't even venture to the southern part. Maybe next time, we can focus on the southside, but it's going to be real hard to do that!

RANDOM FACT:
Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) is the same as Coordinated Universal Time (UTC; which was introduced in 1972). Since 1972, a variety of names refer to GMT: Zulu Time, Universal Time, British Mean Time, and Western European Time.