Maritime Greenwich, or How To Declare Yourself the Center of the Universe

(This is the last of my belated posts about our February travels...)

You know me, I like my World Heritage sites. Westminster is on the List, as is the Tower of London. But those are so obvious. My London World Heritage adventure of choice? Maritime Greenwich.

Maritime Greenwich is easily accessible by public transit, about 30 minutes south of central London. But when we emerged from the Cutty Sark station into grey misty wetness, we realized we hadn't a clue as to what we had actually come to see.

Greenwich on the Thames: I know there was a palace here, related somehow to Elizabeth I; and there's Greenwich Mean Time, which might or might not be the same thing as the Prime Meridian; and there's an "old royal naval college", but I don't know why it was important, other than that it sounds slightly familiar. Like my vague sense of literary deja-vu in the rest of London, I had the disconcerting feeling that I knew all about Greenwich without knowing anything: my history and science, all muddled up.

The weather didn't help: a fine drizzle that blurred the edges of the landscape and made it hard to discern buildings that were closer than they seemed. We followed signs to the campus of the Old Royal Naval College and its "interpretive center" (built to justify Maritime Greenwich's inscription on the World Heritage List), which helped unpack the layers of history. The Greenwich I had read about as a child - the palace of the Tudors, where Henry VIII lived and Elizabeth I was born - had fallen into disrepair during the Civil War and was torn down after the Restoration; "modern" Greenwich is a baroque complex, designed in parts by Inigo Jones and Christopher Wren during the 1600s.

The palatial buildings along the river are distinct from the Royal Observatory up on the overlooking hill, which was what we had really come to see. So we fumbled our way through the wet parkland to the seventeenth-century red brick observatory, rounded and ornate. With the low-hanging clouds of misting rain, we could barely make out from the scenic overlook the nearby sites in Greenwich (like the Millennium Dome), much less those of London in the distance.

Disclaimer: Not my feet.

It turns out that the observatory is a popular tourist destination, and the site was crowded despite the weather. I am still uncertain what it meant to stand astride the Prime Meridian that passes through the observatory's courtyard (to straddle the eastern and western hemispheres at the same time?), but we did piece together from the exhibits the connection between astronomy, longitude, and the keeping of time:

Once upon a time, before the advent of GPS, ship captains could not measure where they were, horizontally-speaking, on the globe. Latitude - the distance from the equator - was a simple matter of geometry (the angle of the sun from the horizon at noon). But longitude required a reference point back home - either time or, less reliably, the relative position of stars.

So the royal astronomers stayed up every night at the Greenwich observatory diligently mapping the stars as seen from London. But time was a more difficult matter: Sony didn't make digital watches back in the 1700s - and a clock that measures time using a pendulum doesn't exactly work on a ship at sea. Even after Parliament announced a ridiculously large prize for developing an effective time keeper for sea-faring ships, it still took 80 years - 80 years - to develop the spring-loaded clock. This clock would be set to the time back home - a standardized time - and thereby allow sailors to measure their horizontal distance from home (their longitude) by comparing the standardized time with the local time (as measured by the sun).

It being the height of the British Empire, the Brits set the standardized time (Greenwich Mean Time, or GMT) and longitude 0 (the Prime Meridian) to Greenwich. If you can, do.

As for the naval college (originally a naval hospital), I still don't understand its historical importance, but I was soothed by its serene, symmetric geometry and its long lines of perspective from the river up to the surrounding green English hillsides. These are the sort of massive uniform buildings of greyed stone that look elegantly simple from afar but overwhelm and dwarf you when you stand alongside them. Some of the more ornate halls are open to the public, but its real benefit to the visitor is the beauty of its campus spread out alongside the river.

Big London Flavour, Little London Cost

Everybody warned me that London would be expensive. I beg to differ. Armed with an EasyJet ticket from the Hague and a friend kind enough to let us sleep on her floor, our biggest investment in London last month was our unlimited public transit pass (less than 7 GBP per day). Well, and food, but everybody has to eat.

So how did we achieve a full-flavoured London experience in two and a half days, without mortgaging our unborn child's college education? It turns out my favorite London experiences are free:

The British Museum: My life feels more complete now that I have seen the Rosetta Stone and the Parthenon Marbles (the politically correct term for the Elgin Marbles) - although I am of the school that believes the Marbles belong in Greece. Equally impressive: beautiful Japanese prints, both ancient and modern; a moving array of Egyptian statues; and the stunning atrium of the museum itself. I could have spent the entire weekend here. For the intellectually curious, I also recommend "A History of the World in 100 Objects", a radio program in partnership with the BBC. 

Monuments at night: Put off by Westminster Abbey's stiff admission charge of 16 GBP and restrictive tour times, we instead decided to take the Chevy Chase approach ("Look kids, Big Ben!"). And if there's one thing I learned from living in DC, it's that national monuments always look more monumental when lit up at night. So after dinner Saturday, we took the Tube to Westminster for a photo op with the brilliantly illuminated halls of Parliament and Westminster Abbey - and from Big Ben, it's just a short walk up Whitehall to Trafalgar Square, where the lions likewise look more regal when lit from below. (Bonus points if you know anything about the Battle of Trafalgar.)

Tate Modern: The current temporary exhibit in the Tate Modern's massive main hall entails one million hand-crafted porcelain replicas of sunflower seeds, spread out like a grey sandy beach. The scope is impressive, though it would have been even more impressive if people could romp through it as originally intended (it's been roped off due to health concerns). But as far as Jeff's concerned, no Tate Modern exhibit will ever compare to the infamous (for the number of times I've heard about them) multi-story slides that were installed in the main hall during his first visit.

I also have to mention:

• The British Library: Free exhibits of ancient illuminated manuscripts; the papers of famous British authors (like Jane Austen, Samuel Johnson, and Lewis Carroll); the original index cards used to compile the Oxford English Dictionary (which I mention as a shout out to Lyza); and of course the Magna Carta. Also home to a popular cafe full of strung-out students and frumpy scholars and a bookstore with the best postcards in London. 
• The observatory at Greenwich: It's a World Heritage site! And (for the time being, at least) there's no admission fee. 
• Double-decker city buses: Let's just say I discovered the inspiration for J.K. Rowling's Knight Bus. (Free with unlimited transit pass.)
• Harrod's: A minor anthropological adventure in the middle of prime window-shopping and people-watching territory. 
• Organ concerts at St. Paul's: St. Paul's significant admission fee is waived during church events. As I'm less interested in the details of which royal sat where than in the general feeling of a beautiful church, this suits me fine. In particular, I would have loved to attend one of the church's free Sunday afternoon organ concerts.
• St. James's Park: Although London has many parks to choose from, I like St. James's Park for being centrally located and nicely landscaped, with the added bonus of allowing you to say you've "seen" Buckingham Palace - and its famous guards.

And then there's the eating. At Jeff's prodding we tried one of the classic London pubs recommended by Rick Steves. (Interior decoration: Notable. Food: Decent. Beer: Flat.). But perhaps my most favorite London activity of all was our all-out East London Pakistani feast at Tayyabs.

In heaven at Tayyabs.

Seriously, this might rank among the 10 best meals of my life: spice-rubbed grilled lamb chops, platters of tender tandoori chicken and fish and the complex flavors of house-made seekh kebab, haleem (a rich, slow-cooked lentil and meat dish with an undercurrent of heat), and spicy okra with meat. Even the pastry desserts were perfectly flaky, nutty, and buttery. And with the final tally coming to only 18 GBP per person (cheap by London standards, at least), Tayyabs has a staggering price-to-quality-and-quantity ratio.