Straddling the Hemishperes

This morning I took the train to Blackfriar's Station on the Thames River and then boarded the "river bus", a boat service which provides transportation up and down the river.  From the boat I had excellent views of many London landmarks.

 
Pictured above is the HMS Belfast, a British cruiser which was active in World War II.  It is now a museum ship permanently docked along the Thames.  In the background is the skyscraper commonly referred to as The Shard.  It was built in 2012, is 72 stories tall, and is the tallest building in the European Union.

Tower Bridge is the best known bridge in London.  It was built in the late 1800s.  Many people mistakenly think that it is the London Bridge of the nursery rhyme. 

Farther down the river are the skyscrapers of Canary Wharf which has become one of the major financial districts of London.

My destination was the end of the line on the "river bus"... Greenwich.

When you get off the boat, the first thing that you see is the famous nineteenth century clipper ship, "Cutty Sark".  The ship is in permanent dry dock at Greenwich, and is open to the public.

 

In the times of the Tudors, Greenwich was the site of the royal Palace of Placentia.  It was there that Henry VIII and Elizabeth I were born.  By the 1600s the palace was demolished, and King Charles II planned to build a new palace here that would rival the Palace of Versailles in France.  Only one section of that palace was completed however.  His daughter, Mary II, planned to incorporate that unfinished palace into plans to build a Royal Hospital for Seamen.  She commissioned the famous architect Christopher Wren to design the project.  It was begun in 1696 but was not completed until 1751.  The complex of buildings is one of the greatest works of British architecture.

 

The Hospital for Seaman became the Royal Naval College in 1873.  Today the buildings are occupied by the University of Greenwich and the Trinity Conservatory.  Two parts of the complex are open to the public... the Chapel of St. Peter and St. Paul and the Painted Room.

The Painted Room was designed as the dining hall of the hospital.  The walls and ceiling are lavishly decorated with paintings which glorify England's naval power and the triumph of Protestantism under the monarchs William and Mary and Queen Anne.  The naval hero Admiral Nelson lay in state here after his death in the Battle of Trafalgar.

Behind the former hospital is Greenwich Park.  The Royal Observatory is located on top of a hill.  From the observatory there is an excellent view of Greenwich and beyond.

The Observatory stands on the Prime Meridian which divides the globe into the Eastern and Western Hemispheres.  Another visitor was kind enough to take my picture as I straddled the hemispheres (although you can't see my feet which stand on either side of the metal line marking the meridian.)  Many years ago on a trip to South America, I stood on the Equator with one foot in the Northern Hemisphere and one foot in the Southern Hemisphere.  Now I can say that I have straddled the Eastern and Western Hemispheres as well.