Day 21

July 31

If there is a thing the british dont do better than us is weather expectation! They can’t say even for the day what would be the weather without going wrong and if you look to different channels, they dont even say the same thing.

So this morning, when I hearded about a rainy day, I didn’t pay attention and go for a tour to Greenwich… and that was a very good decision.
First I met the group at Tower Hill Underground, just beside The Tower of London. I visited twice The Tower on previous trips so no need to go in. We walk a little bit around and when on the pier for our boat to Greenwich. On the boat, we had a very interesting comment of what we saw on our way. It was a very pleasant 30 minutes boat ride. For awhile we even had sunshine with us.

Greenwich is well know because it is at meridian 0 longitude. It is situate in south-east London, on the south bank of the Thames. It is also the site of a royal palace where lived Henry XIII and Elisabeth I (daughter of Henry XIII and Ann Boleyn). On the royal observatory, you can see a Time ball. It is a large painted wooden or metal ball that drops at a predetermined time, principally to enable sailors to check their marine chonometer. Time balls are usually dropped at 1pm. They were raised half way about 5 minutes earlier to alert the ships, then with 2–3 minutes to go they were raised the whole way. The time was recorded when the ball began descending. We saw the ball drop at exactly 1pm. Cool!
Our guide was pretty well informed and gives us plenty of interesting informations.
After the tour, I went to Greenwich market. I love markets! Then I came back with the DLR (train). It was a nice day without a drop of rain.

I didn’t push my luck too far and choose to go read my book in a local pub instead than in St-James park. The sky was getting dark grey by then. The pub was lively, full of gentlemen and ladies well dressed. I sat at the bar, had half a pint of lager and read my book for about half an hour.