London England (Thames, Greenwich, Imperial War Museum, Transport Museum)

25 July 2024 - London England (Thames, Greenwich, Imperial War Museum, Transport Museum)

Several days into our London stay and we are working down our bucket list.  A ride down the Thames to visit Greenwich, Royal Navy Museum and the Observatory was a bit nostalgic as we took that same trip on our honeymoon oh so many years ago. The Imperial War Museum is not really my cup of tea but Russ enjoyed himself. And there was a nice rose garden out in front. The London Transport Museum was quite interesting.  I was impressed that it was setup in a way that adults could enjoy while, at the same time, children could have fun climbing all over things and pretending they were bus drivers. We had a few nice weather days, but also several cool, cloudy, rain spitty days - typical London summer we were told. We did a guided walking tour around the area, but somehow the guide missed getting us to Buckingham Palace in time to see the changing of the Guards.  We did get to see them on their way back to the barracks. Tried more London pub food - still not impressed. But the local ale is good!

The Royal Horseguards Hotel.  Originally built, in the 1880s, as part of the Whitehall Court of luxurious apartments, the construction collapsed when it was found to be part of a pyramid scheme. When it was finished, it became a high end hotel.  

Cleopatra’s Needle, given to England by the ruler of Egypt in the 19th century in honor of Lord Nelson’s victory at the Battle of the Nile. It had been in Alexandria for 1800 years.

A model of the Mayflower tucked away in a little inlet off the Thames.

The Tower of London. We didn’t revisit this spot.  When we were in London with Russ’ parents in the 1990s, I got halfway through the tour and decided it was too gory for me and left.

This is where you would enter from the river side, if you were headed to be a prisoner in the tower.

These modern buildings sit on what used to be a warehouse district until the mid 1900s.  The area is called Canary Wharf.

Many of the warehouses, if not torn down, were repurposed as apartments.

Apartment building designed so every apartment has a view.  One thing I noticed about London was all the new buildings.  It doesn’t appear that is there any kind of planning for the architecture of a new building to have any compatibility with its neighbors.  In places, it was jarring.

Tower Bridge.  You can walk across the top (for a price.)

The Horseguards Building. Our guide told us a story that Queen Victoria, when she first became Queen, noticed that the Horseguards spent most of their time lallygagging around and playing cards, not guarding her, so she demanded there be a schedule for them to stand guard at the entrances. The same schedule is adhered to today.

Trafalgar Square.  Lord Nelson is venerated in England. This square commemorates the victory in the Battle of Trafalger. While we were in London, there were several large protests in the square, some centered on the Israeli-Hamas fighting.  Lots of police were visible, so we stayed clear during those protests.

View of Whitehall and Horseguards Building from St. James Park.

Gate leading into St. James Park.  The park used to be closed to the public and only the Royal could have access.  They kept deer there for hunting.  That ended long ago.

The Horseguards coming back after the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace.

Buckingham Palace.  We are coming back in a few days to get a tour of the inside.

Queen Victoria’s Memorial.  You see this in all the pageantry videos involving Buckingham Palace.

This statue is on the north bank of Westminster Bridge.  Boudica was the boss of the celts, who ruled the area where London is when the Romans arrived. When she protested the annexation of her lands, she was publicly flogged and her daughters were publicly raped. She led her people in a revenge attack across the area, an estimated 70,000-80,000 Romans and Brits were killed. No one knows what happened to her. Nero almost made the decision to abandon Britain because of the Brits rebellion.

The Transport Museum showcases the history and evolution of transportation in London.  If you could afford it, you could hire this one-person taxi to carry you over the mucky roads to your destination.

A horse pulled tram on rails.  The horses were able to pull more people and these became the working person’s way around London.

Introduced from Paris, this taxi was quite a step up, if you could afford it.

An old tube train.

Ad space on the vehicles was a revenue generator practically from day one.

This looks like an underground train in the 1960s, judging by the striped trousers and long hair.

I thought this was one of the better layouts for a museum.  They got a lot of vehicles in a relatively small space.

There are double deckers everywhere (I couldn’t remember seeing any other type of bus). Nowadays, the stairs and back steps are enclosed.

A predecessor of the London black cab.

One of the displays I found very moving was on the use of the underground during wars as shelters. The displays compared and contrasted the WWII experience of London during the Blitz and Ukraine’s recent experience during the Russian bombings.  Not much changed, and very disheartening.

Just next to the Transport Museum is Covent Garden.  If you saw “My Fair Lady”, you will be quite familiar with this historic shopping district.  The number of flower vendors is much reduced, replaced by swap meet kiosks and very high end boutiques.

St. Paul’s Anglican Church in Covent Garden has been here since 1600s. Plays and concerts are often performed in the church.  When we were there, an elderly pair of men were on unicycles in the plaza, juggling bowling pins.

Homage to the flower history with fake flower trees in areas.

The current location of the Imperial War Museum (there are actually five sites, this is just one) is housed in the Bethlehem Royal Hospital or “Bedlam”

While the rose gardens were past their peak, some roses were hanging on.  The fragrance took me back to my rose garden in Long Beach.

A piece of the Berlin Wall, used as an easel for some artwork.

The museum documents WWI and WWII from the views of the people who were involved.

A V2 rocket of which Hitler used hundreds to blitz London.  Russ explained to me that Hitler didn’t have a big bomber force to run nightly raids on London, hence the rockets.

Reminds me of scenes I saw in Eisenhower’s Presidential Library and FDR’s.  Shows a typical British family living room with the radio where they got all their real-time news.

A piece of the U.S.S. Arizona.  When I asked Russ why it was in a British museum when the Brits weren’t involved in the Pacific War, he conjectured that it showed the moment the United States entered WWII. Prior to that, the United Kingdom was fighting Hitler on their own. Now they would get the support of the American military.

The wreckage of a Japanese Zero fighter.

General Montgomery’s Humber Staff Car.  He would often address his troops by standing up in the back.

When we took the boat down the Thames, we were able to take a tour of the Cutty Sark, the fastest boat of its time. The well-to-do of London would pay top dollar for the first teas to be unloaded in London, so a big competition for fast ships was spawned.

Volunteers working on the rigging.  When all the sails are out, there are over 32,000 square feet of sail and 11 miles of rigging. They could get from China to England in around 2 months.

The Chinese weren’t interested in buying anything from the Brits, causing an imbalance in trade.  To compensate, the East India Company (which had a monopoly on trade with China), decided to grow opium in India and sell it illegally in China for silver. And the rich got richer. Eventually, this led to the Opium Wars and China’s opening of previously closed ports.

It was interesting to learn how the ship was pulled into drydock and this museum built around it.  You can walk underneath and all over the ship.  All totally accessible.  One of the high tech features at the time was the hull.  It was covered in a copper and zinc alloy which kept barnacles from clinging and slowing the ship down.

Inside the area where the tea was stored, they had a very well done display of the history.

The same week the Cutty Sark was launched, the Suez Canal was opened.  This cut off 3000 miles on the route to China and made it difficult for wind powered ships, like the Cutty Sark, to navigate. Steamships became the transport of choice. After only eight voyages, the Cutty Sark was forced out of the tea trade. It then entered the Australian wool trade and, it was here, that the Cutty Sark spent its most successful years.

The officers enjoyed pretty swank quarters.

On deck, several shops were installed.  This one is the carpenter’s workshop. There was also a galley kitchen.

A very large collection of ship figureheads.

The ship is suspended in air with these metal struts.

Greenwich is a very nice little village that has retained its Victorian heritage.

The Royal Navy Museum was interesting.  It had some beautiful naval paintings and lots of artifacts from various important British battles.

This is the uniform that Lord Nelson was wearing when he was fatally wounded.  You can see the hole in the right shoulder.  This happened in the Battle of Trafalger, which the Brits won. To preserve his body for transport back to England, he was placed in a barrel of rum. He is buried at St. Paul’s Cathedral.

My scooter couldn’t make the steep climb to the Royal Observatory, so Russ visited it on his own.

The original Prime Meridian.  With the advent of GPS, the line has moved 102.5 meters to the east.   

The Old Royal Naval College with Canary Wharf in the background, on the other side of the Thames.

A giant ship in a bottle (probably 4-6 feet) in front of the Royal Navy Museum.

This is the “Shard”. It houses businesses, restaurants and hotels and, for a princely amount, you can ride to the top for views of London.

A view of the full moon from the middle of Westminster Bridge.