River stories

Blogging on the iPad has its own unique set of frustrations! We are taking photos, of course, many I’d like to share as we go along, but I’m unable to upload them from our phones to the blog.  The pictures you’re seeing are just post cards off the internet.  Well, putting together a collection of the best will be a fun project when we get home.  I haven’t bothered to set up any of the other photo sharing services. I spend too much time pecking away as it is.

One of the ironies of long distance travel is by the time you are settled in, adjusted and able to get around with ease, it’s time to move on. For example, I wish we had spent the day at Kew Gardens instead of Windsor.  A week is just not enough. That’s lesson number one.  I’d love to see more of England.  But this international trip (I’m not calling it a vacation) is a learning experience for us. Central London is an exciting and fascinating place, but with the cultural diversity and multitude of languages, there’s little sense of being in England at all.

But if you avoid the giant tourist attractions and head out a bit, it’s a much nicer experience. London is made up of hundreds of separate neighborhoods and districts, all with unique atmosphere.

We had a wonderful day yesterday, out on our own in Greenwich.  From practically our backyard, we can take the river bus service up and down the Thames. Greenwich is a short but interesting ride, as the Thames is always up to something- the tide rushing in or out, windy or calm, you never know. You pass by posh apartment buildings along the river, once the site of the most dismal slums. The river is brown, but not running with sewage. You can sit back and contemplate this where the British Empire pushed out into the world.

Greenwich is home of the Cutty Sark, on magnificent display at the ferry dock. Once the fastest sailing ship in the world, it made the trip between England and Australia in record time.  Maritime Greenwich a world heritage site, so there were lots of visitors, but it felt wonderfully like a normal English town. We stopped at a bakery for tea and tarts then set off to find the Royal Observatory, the exact location of Greenwich Mean Time, the prime meridian of the world. Yes, you can actually stand on a little piece of it for free.

From there we wandered back into town and had quite a good bowl of pho (no kidding) for lunch. The best things seem to happen by accident, and we stumbled into the St. Alfege Church, on that site for a thousand years and the baptism place of Henry VIII. Also the church home of Thomas Tallis, the father of English church music.

Finally a visit to The Queen’s House, a Tudor mansion filled with fascinating art including the famous “Armada Portrait” of Elizabeth I. And no crowds at all. It was a wonderful day. As we left the ferryboat we saw a large tour group being herded on, and took a big sigh of relief it wasn’t us.

We are going to a play this afternoon, and then must strike camp and sadly leave England tomorrow, just when we figured things out.

With a bit of luck, Eurostar will depart on time and whisk us under the English Channel to Paris.