Excursion Royal greenwich tour at London
Cruise line: SilverseaDifficulty:
Greenwich is one of London's most popular sight-seeing destinations and it brims with maritime, scientific and royal history. In 2012, this leafy London suburb became the Royal Borough of Greenwich in recognition of the town's long and illustrious heritage as well as its royal associations.
Today enjoy visiting the key sites of Greenwich, the National Maritime Museum and the Royal Observatory.
Royal Observatory
The world's time has been measured from Greenwich since 1844 and a visit to the Royal Observatory will give you the opportunity to straddle the hemispheres! Standing as a monument to navigational research, the Royal Observatory is the original home of Greenwich Mean Time and is famous for being the source of the Prime Meridian line that divides the East from the West (longitude 0° 0' 0"). The Observatory galleries unravel time, space and astronomy, while the Planetarium explores the heavens and at Flamsteed House, Sir Christopher Wren's original building, is where London's only public camera obscura is housed.
National Maritime Museum
The National Maritime Museum is formed from the Queen's House and has 2 separate wings, joined by colonnades. The museum was first opened in 1937. The west and east wings, plus the linking colonnades, were built in 1807-16 by Daniel Alexander; the west wing holds the main body of the museum whilst the east wing is mostly used for special exhibitions. There is a wonderful collection of boats and naval memorabilia, relics, maps, charts and uniforms, all of which tell the long story of Britain's history as a seafaring nation. Nelson's blood stained uniform from the Battle of Trafalgar is one of the star attractions. The number of exhibits in the Museum is enormous and main intention of the Museum is to show off the history of mankind's association with the sea.
Visits to the Royal Observatory and Maritime Museum are free-flow but the guide will be on hand to lead the way and to add facts and history and insights.
Points of interests
Points of interest seen on this excursion include: Greenwich, Royal Observatory, National Maritime Museum
