Places to Visit in Greenwich, London
Nihan Uğurlu · Keyfi Yazılarım ·
Travel memories from 2015. Hours and prices may change; check official links before visiting.
Personal travel notes, discoveries along the way and photographs from the original story.
Travel notes
The Greenwich meridian
The Greenwich meridian
Greenwich is a district of London. You can get here along the River Thames, too. We took the train, but I would definitely recommend going by boat: it is a lovely way to see London. Greenwich is home to world-famous sites including the Royal Observatory and the Prime Meridian.
The symbolic line of the Prime Meridian in the Royal Observatory's courtyard
This is recognised as the place through which the Prime Meridian passes. The explanation I gave in my original notes was that the British devised the meridians and decided that the starting meridian should pass through their own country. It is also a tourist destination, with the United Kingdom's largest maritime museum.
The area and its buildings were included on the UNESCO World Heritage List for their contributions to science and the arts, and for their period architecture. Greenwich is only about 20 minutes from central London.
London from Greenwich
We walk through Greenwich Park and up the hill to the Royal Observatory and astronomy centre. It is such a peaceful, green place, a truly lovely district. Sadly, coming from somewhere where I feel greenery is in short supply, we find ourselves wide-eyed at it all. Putting shopping centres and tall towers everywhere for profit is terribly upsetting!!!
A view of London
The observatory was built in 1675 by Charles II as the home of John Flamsteed, the first Astronomer Royal. Its task was to discover an astronomical method for finding a ship's longitude at sea. The red ball on the building's tower would drop at precisely 1 pm Greenwich time so ships could set their clocks. Today, Greenwich is best known as the home of Greenwich Mean Time and the Prime Meridian.
Since 1884, Greenwich has been recognised as the location of the zero meridian, with world time set accordingly. In a way, whoever did and published the work first got both the zero meridian and the starting point for time! Had the Ottomans done the same work, perhaps the starting point would have been Kandilli Observatory in Istanbul. People come to this meridian to be photographed with one foot on each side: one in the east, the other in the west 🙂
The clock museum
There is also a clock museum at the observatory, with all sorts of displays about the first clocks and their historical development.
The museum was free when we visited, but if you wanted a photograph on the Greenwich meridian itself, I think it cost £9, just so you know 🙂
From here, we head down towards Greenwich's shops. It is a lovely, distinctive little place with its own quiet character. We go into Greenwich Market, which is the reason many people come here. It is large, with a wonderful variety of crafts, clothes, food from different countries, waffles, bags, jewellery and all sorts of pretty little things.
Greenwich Market
Waffle
I would definitely stop by the market when you come to Greenwich. The Indian and Thai food here wasn't really for us; plenty of people love it, of course, but it isn't to my taste. The waffle was wonderful, though: you should try it 🙂