Greenwich (London), UK

Trip Report for Greenwich (London), UK: Monday, May 5, 2025

We started today at the early hour of 6:30am, with commentary by Viking lecturer Russell Lee as we sailed through the Thames Barrier, perhaps a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

The Thames Barrier is a retractable barrier system built to protect the floodplain of Greater London from exceptionally high tides and storm surges moving up from the North Sea. It has been operational since 1982. When needed, it is closed (raised) during high tide. At low tide, it can be opened to restore the river’s flow towards the sea.

Not the Viking Sky, but a photo of a sister ship of the same size.

Here’s what it looks like on Google Maps

Built across a 1,710 foot wide stretch of the river, the barrier divides the river into four 200-foot and two 100-foot navigable spans. The Viking Sky is one of the largest ships that can pass through the barrier, just squeaking by with little room to spare.

The Sky approaching the barrier, led by a tugboat

Lights on the barrier indicate open channels.

And with that transit, we were officially in London, or at least in the borough of Greenwich.

Greenwich has a rich maritime and royal history, which we explored on foot with a guided walking tour. Our ship was docked near the famous Cutty Sark, the world’s only surviving tea clipper and the fastest sailing ship in the world when it was built in 1869.

The figurehead of the Cutty Sark, inspired by Robert Burns’s poem “Tam O’Shanter,” depicts Nannie the witch, holding a grey horse’s tail. The ship’s name comes from the poem’s description of Nannie wearing a “cutty sark,” a short undergarment.

Our walk took us past Greenwich Palace, later the Old Royal Naval College, birthplace of King Henry VIII and his daughters Queen Mary I and Queen Elizabeth I.

The National Maritime Museum, the world’s largest seafaring museum, housed in a former royal palace

The Queen’s House, the first classical building built in England

Up the hill from the Queen’s House is the Royal Observatory, its entrance marked by a giant ship-in-a-bottle. We didn’t go in on our walking tour, but Bruce and I came back later

After our walking tour, we repaired to the Greenwich Tavern, where we celebrated Cinco de Mayo in grand British fashion.

After lunch we climbed the hill, with a marvelous view of the Queen’s House and the city of London beyond.

Our destination was again the Royal Observatory Greenwich, home of the Prime Meridian and Greenwich Mean Time (now UTC).

Right photo: My feet, one in each of the Western and Eastern hemispheres.

The structure at the top of the building, holding a large red ball, is one of the world’s earliest public time signals, distributing time to ships on the Thames and many Londoners. The Time Ball was first used in 1833 and still operates today. Normally each day, at 12:55pm, the time ball rises halfway up its mast. At 12:58pm it rises all the way to the top. At 1pm exactly, the ball falls, providing a signal to anyone who happens to be looking.

The inside of the observatory’s Flamsteed House contains many interesting exhibits relating to time, including John Harrison’s original “sea clocks,” with which he hoped to win a £20,000 reward for cracking the mystery of determining longitude at sea. The clocks themselves are works of art. Harrison eventually received compensation for his inventions, but not the £20,000 he felt he was owed. You can read more about the fascinating history of solving the longitude problem at https://www.rmg.co.uk/stories/topics/harrisons-clocks-longitude-problem.