Greenwich

Today we had a relaxed start to the day, made all the better thanks to a call from home. Lovely to hear news and to talk with our wonderful offspring.

Once we got going, we walked down past the Cutty Sark and into the Old Royal Naval College, which is now the tourist information centre for Greenwich and which has some good displays of artifacts dug up on the site. A good place to get an idea of the layers of occupation of the site.

We tagged along on a free tour of the area, admired the breathtaking view of Chistopher Wren's neoclassical symmetry, gazed mournfully at the gate where Anne Bolyen departed on her last trip down the river to the tower, and paid our respects to the memorial to Admiral Thomas Masterman Hardy in the splendid Chapel of St Peter and St Paul. There is a family tradition, to which my dad subscribed, that our branch of the Hardy's is somehow connected to the Admiral's.  Hardy is a certainly a big name in Greenwich, as we passed Hardy's Sweet Shop, and the Admiral Hardy Hotel.

After lunch we headed over to the National Maritime Museum. Wonderful collection but somehow​ we struggled with it - the presentation seemed geared more for a younger school kid audience, lots of amazing facts and artifacts, but not strung in any coherent narrative that we could discern. But I am glad to have seen it, and the staff go out of their way to be helpful.

We then met up with a friend from the Camino. John and I walked across the Meseta together, and a more congenial companion for the challenges of that stretch would be hard to find. It was a treat to see him again, and, gentleman that he is, he has offered to drive us next week to a couple of destinations that are hard to get to by public transport.

We pottered home in the sunshine of a lovely afternoon, passing through Greenwich market and circumnavigating the church of St Alfege, "dedicated to Alege, the Archbishop of Canterbury, who was martyred by Vikings on this site in 1012", according to my Greenwich Guide.

Tomorrow we collect our two day London passes, and Anne has been planning carefully so we can make the most of them.
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