Day 17 London 3 May 2018

Our exciting day began with a bus trip from St Pancreas train station. The bus had been sitting in a waiting bay so we hailed it when it took off.  We hopped on and the bus went around the corner and stopped at the next stop and we were evicted, presumably because her shift was finishing.  If she hadn't stopped for the red light the journey would have lasted 20 seconds.  She did give us a printout so we could hop on the next bus. Phew!

Today we took the boat cruise on the Thames to visit Greenwich. We visited the Cutty Sark which was excellent despite being infested with schoolkids, especially younger ones. Talk about herding cats!  It was possibly the best attraction we have seen, that was interactive for kids.

There was rigging school happening at the time. If you look at the image above you can see how high up they were.

Above are a whole series of

We had scones with strawberry jam and clotted cream – yummy. The cafe was located under the Cutty Sark.

We visited the Old Naval College and the Royal Hospital and saw the Painted Ceiling in the Banqueting Hall. It is currently being restored so we were almost within an arm’s length of touching it. The tour was very good and there were only two others in our tour group. The scaffolding certainly gave it a different feel. The colours were dull as these colours were cheaper.

The artist James Thornhill drew himself into one of the images, asking for more money from the King and looking for a backhander.

A quick visit to the Peter and Paul Chapel and then off to the National Maritime Museum. This was interesting and not too crowded.

We walked the 600 metres up to the Royal Observatory. It provided nice views over the Old Royal College. The audio tour was a little dull, it’s hard to make latitude and longitude and the concept of time even remotely interesting.

Elizabeth visited the Fan Museum, but I remained outside because I was not a fan. It showed the history of fans, often hand painted and made with a variety of materials including ivory, lace, silk and/or antler.