Circuitous Travel~Part 14

SUNDAY MEMORIES

Judy Wills

Our final day in London. We were sad to see this day approach. We have so thoroughly enjoyed our time in the British Isles, and London in particular.

Again we took the Tube into London, and we walked along the Embankment – the Thames Embankment – which includes the Victoria Embankment. The Victoria Embankment is a road and riverwalk along the north side of the Thames, from the Palace of Westminster to Blackfriars Bridge (Wikipedia). My notes say that we walked along the Embankment and the Queen’s Walk. According to Wikipedia, there is a difference between the Queen’s Walk and the Victoria Embankment. I’m a bit confused on this matter. All I remember is that we did a lot of walking along that embankment – but thoroughly enjoyed it.

Here are a few pictures that we took along our walk. Unfortunately, Big Ben was in scaffolding – that seems to be our lot in life! But we did get to see it, and that is what matters the most.

Following our walk along the river, we took a bus to Greenwich.

We, along with quite a few other people, took our turn at straddling the Prime Meridian. Here are our girls doing just that.

From Wikipedia I gleaned: Greenwich is world-famous as the traditional location of the Prime Meridian, on which all Coordinated Universal Time is based. The Prime Meridian running through Greenwich and the Greenwich Observatory is where the designation Greenwich Mean Time, or GMT began, and on which all world times are based. That information is just in case you didn’t know where Greenwich Mean Time, or GMT came from. All time on this planet is based from this spot.

In looking at maps, I just realized that Greenwich is actually part of London! If you go down the river Thames a ways, you will come to the Greenwich Foot Tunnel, which connects the north and south islands. Greenwich is on the south side. While we were at Greenwich, we toured through the National Maritime Museum which may be the largest museum of its kind in the world. Part of that museum includes the Cutty Sark, a clipper ship that was launched on the Clyde in 1869. She was a fast ship, involved in the China tea trade. Fascinating to go aboard and look around the ship.

Our last thing to do was to head back toward our B&B, but go to the Royal Botanic Gardens, in Kew, which weren’t far from there. It is a beautiful garden, and we thoroughly enjoyed our time walking through the gardens. Here are some pictures we took:

I’m not exactly sure what “Open Day 1983″ represented, but here are pictures of it in flowers:

The following day was our day to fly back to the United States. We had packed up and were ready to head to Heathrow Airport, but it was a bit of a walk, even to the Tube station near our B&B, especially carrying our luggage. So we asked our host if they would mind giving us a ride to the station. Much to our surprise, they volunteered to take us directly to the airport! We were quite glad for that! And appreciated the British hospitality shown to us.

We made a safe flight back to the U.S., but were so very thankful that we had the opportunity to explore England, Scotland and Wales.

And so ends our Circuitous Travel tale. It was a great deal of fun – and I hope you have enjoyed the journey with us!

~~~~~~~~~~The End~~~~~~~~~~

Tags: Touring London, Travel Series