London Day Trip: Greenwich to Canary Wharf

On a Saturday morning, we took the train (20 minutes) to Blackheath. While Central London seems to be swarming with tourists and students, Blackheath seems to be where families live. The heath is almosted connected to Greenwich Park. On the Saturday morning there were popup markets, kiddy football practice, cricket matches, people running or cycling together....

The official Greenwich Prime Meridian Line is in the courtyard of the Royal Observatory. Luckily the line actually spews out below, where I could photo John without shelling out 16 pounds/pp for something so arbitrary, yet another manifestation of imperialism. The viewpoint by the Observatory is nonetheless magnificent.

Going down the hill towards the River Thames, we first stopped in at the Queen's House (1600s). Its Tulip Stairs had us enthralled. The National Maritime Museum is really a children's affair. Going by the Cutty Sark (1800s clipper), we crossed the Thames via the Greenwich Foot Tunnel, opened in 1902, replacing ferries for workers at the docks and shipyards. Of course, nowadays there is barely a shadow of the industrial activities along the Thames. There is a path along much of the river on either bank. We followed it to Canary Wharf. Along the way, there are redevelopment projects of many different eras, including many ongoing. A significant percentage of the world's cranes seemed to have migrated from China to London. In fact, walking through Canary Wharf, I could easily imagine myself in Shanghai.

We started our day trip by catching the SouthEastern Line at Charing Cross Station.


Getting off the SouthEastern Line at Blackheath (Sun-Ling at left).


Football practice on the heath.


View from Blackheath to Canary Wharf (pyramid roof in the distance).


Cricket.


View from Greenwich Park to London.


The Royal Observatory is adjacent to the "possibly dangerous" viewpoint.







Prime Meridian Line Posing.




The Queen's House is the white building in the middle with the Canary Wharf financial district skyline behind.


The Tulip Stairs at the Queen's House.


View from Queen's House to Canary Wharf.


The famous Cutty Sark, a British clipper ship.


Inside the Greenwich Foot Tunnel (SL at left).


Looking back to Greenwich from the North Thames Path.


Remnants of the Great Eastern shipyard and slipway.


View from the Thames Path.


Canary Wharf financial district.




View from Canary Wharf west to Central London.

British Museum vs V&A - London

Our one and only visit to London circa 1996 did NOT take in any museum. Museums are ALL I wanted to accomplish this time. Within the first couple of hours, we both realized that those two museums are designed for the uninitiated. Though we have been around the world a few times, there are still many places we are yet to visit, the British Museum and the V&A are great.

The number of objects exhibited in the two museums are astronomical, may even be unparalleled by any other museum, and they are both global in coverage. In every other way the two are opposite and complementary. For a museum of its size and caliber, the British Museum is quite unique in that it mostly only collects artifacts. The V&A on the hand is an all-in-one history, technology, decorative art, ethnography, whatever else museum.

British Museum	V&A
Focus on antiquity	Focus on the recent half millenium
More about collecting	More about educating
Real artifacts	Use of reproduction
Specialized scope	Generalized scope

Both are exhausting yet fun to explore.

The Great Court of the British Museum.


There's always a crowd around the Rosetta Stone.


This stairwell between rooms of the Egyptian exhibits was filled with Roman Mosaics which we love to see.


And the Egyptian exhibit halls were very popular as well.







The Assyrian monumental pieces were very cool.


And we were excited to see this set of Chinese Guardians in the Asian section.


The central Garden of the V&A (Victoria and Albert Museum); a great place to take a break.


One of the highlights of the V&A is the main lobby blue, yellow, and green, chandelier.


The V&A has life-size plaster casts (and replicas/copies) of some of the great monuments of Medieval and Ancient Europe. Here is Trajan's Column (from the Roman Forum) in two sections.


Here is a copy/cast of David by Michelangelo and behind on the wall is a copy of School of Athens by Raphael. Sun-Ling and I have seen both in situ, so it was somewhat underwhelming to see these copies.


The Raphael Cartoons were a highlight even though we've seen the actual tapestries in the Sistine Chapel.

We are in London

My birthday was cut short as we flew to London Heathrow on the 7:25pm flight and lost few hours of September 21st. ;-).

Our Next Adventure

We are flying to London 9/21 and returning 12/14 from Rome. Our tentative plan is to spend a week in London, 5 weeks in the north of France and 6 weeks in Italy working our way down to Sicily.

Finally in Vic

Right before COVID we had tickets to fly on 3/20/2020 to Barcelona then train directly to Vic. Two years and two months later, we finally made it to Vic so we could catch our flight from Barcelona to San Francisco.

Vic is distinguished by its plaza major; big, unpaved, and preserved in the traditional style. We had just enough energy to go around the city center to check out all the modernismo buildings.

Our 10-week tour of Spain is ending. We loved every bit of it. It was abundantly clear to us, since our previous trip in 2017, Spain has made a lot of progress and is in ascendance.

Our first look at Plaza Major on the minor market day.

We stayed in a hotel on the 2nd floor of the old train station - just a one minute walk to the tracks.

It rained the afternoon we arrived, but we still walked around town, plus made an appointment for our (then mandatory) COVID-19 test.

No curbs, few cars downtown.

The Cathedral is enormous (with a cloister).

The clinic we used for our covid shot is across the small plaza from the Cathedral. Bonus: it's a beautiful Modernismo building.

There is a restored Roman Temple in Vic.

A block of Modernismo buildings.

Small Plaza.

This balcony caught my eye.

Later in the day we spotted the snow-capped Pryeneese in the distance

The striking Sant Jordi Building.

Political murals and graffiti.

Street festival.

A few more murals.

Our final view of Plaza MaJor.