This afternoon, we will check out of the hotel and hop on a train to Heathrow airport. I booked a room at the Sofitel at Terminal 5 for tonight so we could have a comfy last night in London, and an easy walk to our gate in the morning.
Our train leaves Greenwich at about 1pm, so we plan to spend this morning seeing a few more sights. The Painted Hall is supposed to be beautiful. It is the former dining hall of the 18th-century sailors’ hospital that the Old Royal Naval College occupies. Its ceilings and walls were painted in the 1700s with stunning scenes celebrating British history. People have compared it to the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. This we have to see.
After paying about $50 entrance fee for both of us, it was a bit underwhelming. There was a large art installation of sorts inside that had just opened there that day.
What visitors to the Painted Hall expect to see (this is a photo of the brochure):
Nice, isn’t it? This is what we saw:
The giant lamps are nice, but I’d really rather see the ceiling. 🙂 Oh well.
That wraps up our visit to Greenwich. We’re walking to the train station, so of course it’s raining again. We transferred to the Elizabeth Line to LHR and experienced an ominous 20-minute delay about halfway there when the overhead electric lines stopped working. But we kept the faith and eventually made it to our comfy hotel room at the airport. We celebrated Halloween with Shepherd’s pie and a bottle of wine.
Our flight home tomorrow is a 10-hour direct flight to Austin. Nice and easy.
Almost home.
What a great trip.
Links for the curious:
The Painted Hall website to plan your visit. They have a well-done 3D virtual tour that’s worth a look, whether or not you’ve already visited in person.
Where to stay? If you want to stay at the airport, and specifically Terminal 5, Sofitel is your best bet. The Elizabeth Line from London runs to each terminal at LHR. It’s an elevator ride and an easy walk from the railway station to the hotel reception desk.
We went to Portsmouth to see the Ships. We went to Salisbury to see the Stones. Now we are headed to Greenwich to see the Clocks. We took the train from Salisbury to London Waterloo Railway Station on the first rainy day of our trip. There are multiple ways to travel from Waterloo, in Central London, to Greenwich, in Southeast London. We are taking the easiest route by catching a ride on the Uber Boat run by Thames Clippers. It is a foot ferry that runs up and down the Thames. The closest ferry stop is right underneath the London Eye, the giant Ferris wheel along the river. The very short walk from the train station to the Eye took us right by the IBM London office building. It must be a new location; I remember it being in a slightly different location on my last business trip there, about a kilometer to the east.
The London Eye at Waterloo.
The ferry was comfy. And we could grab a beverage and snack on board, and just enjoy the sights on the 45 minute trip over to Greenwich without getting wet on this rainy day.
Big Ben and Westminster on the north shore of the Thames.The ferry took us under about 10 bridges, including Tower Bridge.
The Cutty Sark is a beautifully restored clipper ship built in 1869 for the China tea trade; the last of its kind. It sits at Greenwich Pier, where we got off the ferry.
The Cutty Sark once was the fastest ship of its time ~max speed 17.5 knots
When fully rigged, the ship flew over 30,000 square feet of sail, with over 11 miles of running rigging.
The inside of ship was a tad unremarkable, with empty wide open space, as it was basically made to hold as much cargo as possible; densely stacked chests of tea, and later wool. A typical crew size was 20-25 men.
The copper/zinc-clad keel of the Cutty Sark from below. The ship is suspended in space to see the topsides, the insides, and the bottom, 280′ long, 36′ wide, 21′ of draft.
We toured the National Maritime Museum on the grounds of the Old Royal Naval College. It is the largest maritime museum in the world, and admission is free! Its exhibits pretty comprehensively cover British seafaring over the years, and across the globe.
National Maritime Museum
Greenwich has long been a center of Royal activity. Greenwich Palace is no more, but it was the birthplace of Henry VIII in 1491 and his daughters, Mary and Elizabeth, who became queens. It was the Tudor base during his lifetime. Since that time, the Queen’s House was built here in 1619. It is now a museum and art gallery. Admission to the Queen’s House is also free, amazingly.
Probably the most famous painting in the Queen’s House is their Armada portrait of Queen Elizabeth I, but I didn’t take a photo. Here’s a link. It’s beautiful. It commemorates the failed invasion of Britain by the Spanish Armada.
The current grand buildings along the Thames were built in 1694 as a hospital for injured and aging seamen. The buildings’ layout was designed to not block the view from the Queen’s House to the Thames.
The view from Water Gate on the Thames looking south past the twin towers of the Old Royal Naval College to the Queen’s House
The seaman’s hospital closed in 1869, after which the site became the home of the Royal Naval College up until 1997. Now it is a cultural and historic site and foundation called the Old Royal Naval College, and it is the the heart of Maritime Greenwich.
We stayed at the Admiral Hardy, two blocks from the Greenwich pier, next to the Greenwich Market, and a short walk to all things in historic Greenwich.
The Admiral Hardy and the entrance to Greenwich Market on the right.
The Admiral Hardy is a large public house that dates back to the late 1800s. They have 7 very nice rooms upstairs. Hotel guests “check in” at the bar. 🙂 Our room was very nice and large. No elevator, though, FYI. The hotel is adjacent to the Greenwich Market, full of food and retail vendors. The sign on the outside of the market’s current location says 1831. Inside it says “Est. 1737.” Either way, it’s been around a while.
At the end of our first day in Greenwich, we were a little damp and a little tired. On day two in Greenwich, we will see the Clocks!
Links for the curious:
Uber Boat’s Thames Clipper website, for an easy way to get from place to place in London via the Thames. Or you can just stay on and do a loop.
I spent last night in a very funky hotel in the South Terminal of Gatwick airport. It’s called bloc hotel and they market their rooms as “yacht-style;” think tiny, as in a cabin on a cruise ship. But it was modern, comfy, cheap and EASY, which makes it worthwhile for me. The airline check-in counter was literally 2 minutes away from my room.
This is the smallest room, they have bigger ones for more $$.
I’m looking forward to getting home. But I sure had a great week!
Sheila365 