We hoped on the tube at Gloucester Road and took it to the Westminster stop where we went topside to the riverbank. We bought two tickets on the Thames River Services boat to Greenwich. Of course we spent the entire trip checking up on their boat handling, narration, bar services, etc. to see how they ranked against Argosy. Our narrator was great, and added a bit of humor to his narration, the boat handler did a great job, and all in all it was a great trip.
Once in Greenwich we departed our boat and headed to the National Maritime Museum (big surprise right!). We spent a couple hours looking at what I call "boat stuff" and it made Chris very happy. Greenwich was gorgeous.
After the Maritime Museum we hiked up the hill to the Royal Observatory and home of GMT.
The crowd up there was insane. This was the line to get your picture taken at the Meridian Line.
We opted to skip that craziness but did sneak a picture of the Prime Meridian of the World.
And the giant telescope.
We then hiked back down the hill towards the Thames and had lunch (and a pint!) at Trafalger Tavern. Lunch was so-so. Chris wasn't too thrilled that his Fish & Chips came with skin and bones still on the fish. Apparently this is how they do it. Perhaps they should rethink that.
We had a bit of time to kill before the next boat so we wandered around Greenwich. I probably would have really enjoyed it if there had be a fewer people everywhere. If I went to Greenwich again I wouldn't go on a weekend day, that's for sure. However, it was a very fun excursion!
Once we were back at the Westminster Pier we decided to take one of Rick Steve's walks called the Westminster Walk. Starts at Big Ben / Parliment and winds through town to Trafalger Square.
(I forgot to mention this before, but we took Rick Steve's London and Rick Steve's Paris with us on this trip and I am so glad we did. Rick, you are the man! We weren't the only ones either, everywhere we went we'd see tourists thumbing through his books!)
After hanging out in Trafalger Square for a while and checking out the crazy performance art that was going on we went down a side street and bellied up at the bar of the Sherlock Holmes, Chris is a huge fan, but not to be confused with the Sherlock Holmes Museum (see Day 4).
As happened many times on this trip we couldn't decide on what or where to eat for dinner and found ourselves wandering the streets around Trafalger Square until we finally stopped in at the Salisbury and shared a plate of "nachos". I put that in quotations because it really wasn't "nachos", instead it was nacho cheese flavored Doritos covered in cold runny cheese with sour cream and salsa. Really, what did we expect!
We finally gave up and headed back to our neighborhood where we stopped in at the Stanhope Arms again for a pint and some cribbage. I had the best cribbage game of my life. I even took a picture of my hand, I was so excited. I rarely beat Chris at cribbage and for once I skunked him!
Once Chris had thrown in the towel we went back to our hotel, exahusted after another long day in London. Being a tourist is very tiring!
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