A Trip to the Royal Observatory

A friend came to visit us a few weekends back and trying to organise a Saturday's entertainment was a little difficult  since she has lived and been to visit London many times. Luckily she had never been to the Royal Observatory in Greenwich so we settled for that one. The weather prediction ranged from sunny to heavy rains, thankfully it chose to be a usual cloudy, grey day.

Once we came out of the Cutty Sark tube station, there were ample directions to show us the way. The area which is known as the Greenwich Village is very pretty and quaint with loads of nice shops and cosy cafes and restaurants and also a covered market where a Saturday market was on at full swing. After five/six minutes walk we were facing the gate of the park and a long trudge up the hill awaited us. It seemed rather a lot of walk but the hill seemed gentle enough. Do not be fooled by the gentle hill, soon all three of us were huffing and puffing. But there were so many others walking along and the park is rather nice, so without too much grumbling we reached our destination. The view from the top is worth every bit of effort in walking up that hill.

Some of the photographs:

 Photo taken from down below...

 The view of the rolling park

 Another view of the park with the Royal hospital in the background and a hilly short cut that people have created for themselves

 Now the real telescope

 Check out Bombay! By the way that is the Meridian Line in copper I think. Remember all those complicated sums that we had to do in Geography class in school, involving latitudes and longitudes? Standing here, I went back to those school days :)

 The clock...

 A slightly different view, dusk is falling...

 What they say about the view...

 Before we knew it, it was dark and all the lights came on and it looked all the more amazing...

 See the green laser light? Well it is the meridian line, lighted up like that in the dark. Isn't it really cool?

At 1p.m. every day they sound a gong, I was disappointed to have missed that. But then when I saw in view in the dark and the laser light, I was glad we came late enough to get a day view and also an evening view.

Apart from the line, there was two/three museums displaying various kinds of clocks, astronautic instruments and there is the Planetarium next door, which we covered as well.