London, a day about the sea, 29 August 2017

A day about the sea

After a smooth two flights from SFO to Dulles to London, we arrive via Heathrow express and metro at our Airbnb apartment near Leiscester Square, not far from Piccadilly Circus, around 10pm. Despite the fact that it is a Sunday, there are huge crowds out and about, party because Monday is  bank holiday, party because it has been squire warm today (almost 80 degrees), and party because this is the last week of vacation before school. After dropping our bags and getting some water, we head  out to find a grocery to get some milk, coffee and yogurt for breakfast, but by close to 11pm, the only places open are mostly liquor stores. We get a few items, walk back in the warm night to the apartment, and sleep until almost 8am.

After a quick coffee, we find a Whole Foods about 5 blocks away, and get necessities for the few days we'll be here (including toilet paper, of which the apartment had none when we arrived). Now with fresh fruit and makings for lunch, we have breakfast and get ready to head out for the day. Our focus today is the Cutty Sark ship (which we missed last time) and the huge National Maritime Museum which Barney is keen to visit again (we had only an hour last visit).

Four trains later, we arrive at the Cutty Sark in Greenwich on a warm day, and immediately head onto this enormous ship, built in 1869 for the tea trade. It is a machine built for speed while maximizing precious cargo area, and could go from China to London in 79 days, more than 15,000 miles. We have a great time walking around the very instructive exhibits, and learning about how the ship was saved, stored, experienced a fire, and was restored again.

We trek up King William's Walk to the Royal Obsevatory and the Prime Meridian, which is at the top of a small bill. The Observatory was built by King George III for the first Royal Astronomer, whose job was to make accurate astronomical observations and publish details to aid in navigating, fishing,  and other fields. the Prime Meridian is located here, and it was fascinating to learn here that were four different merdians placed within about 20' of each other by the different Royal Astronomers, until they finally settled on the one that came to be called the Prime Meridian. A fascinating exhibit described the Longitude challenge of the 18th century, when the British Parliament promised a huge prize to anyone who could build an accurate instrument for measuring longitude. Longitude allowed much better location than latitude alone, and a man named Harrison invented the chronometer, a type of clock, after several versions, which do so accurately and won him the prize.

We hike down the hill to the  National Maritime Museum, Barney's choice for the day, which we saw briefly on our last trip. It is a celebration of the days of sail, and there is a whole gallery devoted to Admiral Lord Nelson, including the uniform he was wearing when he died, where shows the bullet hole that killed him. We saw the J.M.W. Turner "Battle of Trafalgar", a monumental painting of the decisive battle a Nelson won where he was killed. another exhibit is ballet the Battle of Jutland, the major naval conflict between England and Germany in WWI, which neither of us had heard of, but was a great study in strategy and the limitations of navigation and communications of the day. The museum was filled with ship models, equipment that people used no board, and everything from cuff links to fans that celebrated Nelson's victory. there is a reason that London has a Trafalgar Square with a giant column and statue of Lord Nelson. He was from Norfolk, and last visit we went to a pub Nelson used to visit.

Back on the train to central London. We go to a dishoom, but they have over an hour wait, and we are both too hungry. Barney is attracted by the a place across the street, Tredwell, and we go there and have a lovely dinner. To start, I have a Boulevard, which is good but the absolute standout is Barney's drink, gin with muddled cucumber, St. Germain, apple juice, and basil. I get three starters, a ham terrine, then a crab-tomato salad, and finally a poached egg with hollandaise on a bed of bacon and braised mushrooms, which was delicious. Barney had a perfectly done hangar steak with roasted broccoli and a nice Malbec. Dessert for Barney was a peanut butter pudding with the darkest chocolate sorbet I've ever seen, whhcih he really enjoyed, and I had an almost-apricot parfait, light and delicious.

We walk back to the apartment and fall into bed, tired after a wonderful full day in London.