On a sunny Sunday in February, I managed to wrestle Dave away from his study material to enjoy a day being tourists in London. We decided to take a boat trip up the Thames to Greenwich, home of the Royal Naval College, the National Maritime Museum, and time...yessss, time.
First stop after disembarking was the Royal Naval College.
Of the several buildings that make up the college, only a couple are open to the public. The most popular is King William Court, home to the Painted Hall. When it was initially completed, the hall was deemed "too magnificent" to simply be a sailor's dining hall as originally intended. As such, it was opened to the public and has been a tourist trap since 1824. Who needs a real fireplace when you can just paint one into your wall?
All of the ambience, none of the fire hazard.
Crossing the grounds, we went to the next building open to the public: the Chapel. Very large, very quiet, very early-America Virginia feeling (don't let the Brits hear me say that)
As these were the only two buildings we could get into, it was time for us to move on. Next up, the National Maritime Museum. It was filled with all kinds of history and artifacts from years of ship merchants and trade. There were old ships and lighthouses filling the entrance halls, items from one of the first expeditions to Antarctica, and a history of all the goods that have come to England over the years via the sea (like tea!).
Sadly, my camera's memory ran out of room as we entered the museum, and I spent more time deleting old pictures off than taking new ones. So I've made the following three pictures really large to make up for it.
After leaving the museum, we headed up to the Greenwich Royal Conservatory, in search of TIME.
First, we took a small detour at the planetarium. As riveting as I expected "The Life of Stars" to be, the dark lighting and comfortably reclining seats served better as an impromptu nap time. Outside the planetarium, feeling refreshed and invigorated, we came upon this gigantic...thing. It is one of the single largest uses of bronze in the world and it serves as a giant compass of sorts. Each of its angles align with important astronomical and geographical things - the north pole's star, the equator, meridian lines, etc. I just thought it looked cool.
Finally, into the observatory we went. The gardens outside had some pretty intricate (and probably insanely accurate) sundials.
Inside, you get a really interesting explanation of just how significant the establishment of the prime meridian line was for life and how it linked to telling time. I'm going to attempt to explain, though I may just confuse you. Apologies in advance, if so:
Back in the day, ships had no way knowing how far east/west they had gone. Most ships just had to take a guess that all too often caused them to run aground. As travel by sea became more common and necessary for the booming English economy, it became really important to figure out where the hell you were on the ocean so you didn't lose your goods, your money, your ship, and your life. A contest was held in 1714. The grand prize was £20,000 if you could accurately determine longitude within 30 nautical miles.
The first part of the solution was to divvy up the world into longitudinal lines. Imagine the longitude lines as we know them now: 24 of them, splitting the world up into giant orange slices. In theory, if there is one slice for each hour of the day, then travelling between two slices means you've travelled 1 time zone and had a 1 hour time change. So if you could figure out a way to tell the time at sea in your given slice, you could figure out how far you'd travelled.
Unfortunately, the only accurate timepiece back then was the pendulum clock. Problem was, if you picture a pendulum on a rocking ship, it would not keep rhythm while it swings and would be rendered useless. The second part of the solution was creating a non-pendulum time-keeping piece. Long story short, the guy who won the contest essentially did so by creating the first accurate watch. Hence, time telling + longitudinal lines = birth of Greenwich Mean Time.
Upon establishing Greenwich as 0°, a little red ball was placed high up on top of the observatory. As ships left the port of London and would pass by this spot, they would line up instruments onboard their ship with the red ball in a way that would set their clocks as they headed out to sea.
After a thoroughly educational journey through the museum and around the grounds of the observatory, it was time to see TIME. Dave's excited.
Dave and I, as far apart as possible - standing in opposite hemispheres:
0°
Woohoo, official Olympic countdown.
After our trip through time, we strolled back down the observatory hill and wandered the grounds a little more. We tried to get into the final attraction of the town, the Queen's house. However, it didn't seem as though she was home.
Finally, we wandered into town. Greenwich has a famous market with tons of shops and food stalls. We got some mulled wine and had a look around. After about an hour, we decided to call it a day and head back home on the boat. An absolutely love day, we had a great TIME...haha, lame, couldn't resist. :-)
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