Wednesday, Aug. 1 (Yikes! August already!), we sailed down the Thames on a comfortable commuter boat to Greenwich. Our tour of the Caird Library in the National Maritime Museum was far better than anyone expected, I think! It contains more than 100,000 sea charts and maps from medieval times onward. We also got to see several artificats from its priceless Titanic archives, which were bequeathed by author Walter Lord (He wrote A Night to Remember). This photo is from a Titanic memorial garden on the grounds of the museum. I visited the famous Painted Hall, which is ''one of the finest banqueting rooms in Europe.'' It took artist Sir James Thornhill 19 years to paint, and he was basically paid peanuts for it...
LONGITUDE ZERO DEGREES
I hiked 10 minutes up the hill to the Royal Observatory to have this obligatory photo taken of me astride the Prime Meridian of the World! Then, in the Time Galleries, I saw John Harrison's famous marine chronometers, as chronicled in Dava Sobel's Longitude. An added bonus is that the view of London is absolutely superb from up there!
No comments:
Post a Comment