Greenwich and a lil' bit of London by night

As I have mentioned already, during our last trip to London we haven't seen much. But that was the point. We weren't set on sightseeing that much. Sure, we had to see something, as we wouldn't have been us. But the whole point of the getaway was enjoying ourselves, browsing through bookstores, just walking, walking and walking a little more around London.

This time we decided to move a little further away from the centre and see the Royal Observatory in Greenwich. The last time I visited the place was back in 1995, when I was a little girl in a big city. At first I wanted to attach a picture or two from back then. Buuuut... well, maybe it's not that good an idea after all ;)

Anyway, we decided to goand see the Royal Observatory since Krzys has never been there before. And he wanted to see it, too. When we were driving through Spain in 2016, we crossed the prime meridian (twice, actually. First time was in France on our way to Spain, but I can't remember it being marked in any particular way. I remember the one in Spain, though). That was when we first started talking and Krzys said he'd like to visit Greenwich. This time we had a chance to do it, and so we did. The weather was nice, it was sunny, it wasn't raining either (unlike the previous day when we visited the Tower). First we went to see the Cutty Sark . Then we climbed up the hill to the observatory.

Apart from us, there were a few people there, but it wasn't crowded. I have to say that the place changed a lot over the past 20 years. I remember the 24 hours clock at the entrance. It still looks the same. But the place where I took the famous "I'm on the hemispheres at once" picture is now hidden in the bushes and fenced. We could see it. But you can't get there now. You can still take the picture, no worries about that. Just in a little different place. It looks good, too ;)

We walked through the exhibitions, learned quite a lot. I loved the rooms, what they looked like, loved the old equipment. The gardens around were also nice and since the weather was working in our favour, we could enjoy a few minutes outside as well. Not at all time lost.

On our way back to the centre, we stepped into a few bookstores and visited a orning market where we had some delicious Scottish breakfast. We got back to London spent some time walking around the Picadilly Circus, met with a friend that we haven't seen almost since our studies in Finland (well, we met in Poland soon after we got back from Finland, but that was it, so it was great to see each other again) and since I was still feeling quite ok (which wasn't given), we decided to stay in the centre and see London by night. Ok, by London I mean the London Eye, the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben. And by "by night" I mean after dark. So 7-8 p.m. was also fine by me ;) We didn't have a chance to see it after dark the previous time we visited London since we were there with young kids. And I love the view a lot.

We enjoyed those few days in London a lot. I don't think it's even possible for me to visit London and say "hey, it was lame. I didn't enjoy it at all". We're already planning our next visits there. As yesterday we decided that me and Arti are going to go there this year (Spring maybe?), he really wants to visit Harry Potter related places (studios included). And since Krzys would love to visit the studios too, he will go there with Paula once she reads the books (and if she doesn't like them as much as we do, he can still wait for Marti to grow a little older ;)).

It's London, baby!

Phew, with all the #Eurotrip2016 posts already written (mind you, it took 2,5 years), I have no idea where to start now. Whether I should start with what we were doing in the meantime, or maybe with our latest #Eurotrip2018... So many ideas! Since writing a series takes me so much time, though (I hope this time it is going to take much shorter), I think starting with single post stories is safer. So, let's start with...

London! Because... well... It's London, baby! It's always a good choice, I love this city and could always get back there.

We last visited London when I was still in my first trimester with our youngest. It was no easy time for me. Even though we were not planning to see much in London then, since we had most of the sightseeing already behind us (it wasn't our, not to mention mine, first visit to London), we still managed to see quite a lot. Especially that we usually had until 2-3 p.m. for sightseeing, as later my nausea usually hit us hard.

Our main goal for London back in March '17 was... bookstores. We love books. Old and new. We hit every bookstore we could find, be it with new or used books. A multi storey one or a tiny bookstore that we could hardly get in. We brought home quite a few books, both new and used ones, but that was our point. We were delighted to do it.

Probably ever since he visited London for the first time in 2007, Krzys wanted to visit the Tower of London. He has a thing for castles and defensive constructions (or whatever we want to call those) and I could see it in his eyes that he really wanted to go there. Our visit back in 2007 was totally on a budget, so we didn't have money for it. The second time we visited London together was with a 5 year old and an almost one year old. Not a company for such a type of sightseeing. We rather spent quite some time in the parks, on playgrounds and.. on workshops in Science Museum. But this time... it was a perfect time to finally see it.

I visited the Tower in 1995. A long time ago. And it was...so different! Especially the Crown Jewels. I remember climbing down the stairs, with the crown jewels on our left and right. Now, they are much better exposed and so much better described. Other exhibitions were also well presented and interesting to see.

I will not describe the history of the place, what it was used for, why the ravens are there and what the exhibitions present. The information is easily available online, described in so many places, on so many pages that it doesn't seem sensible to describe it once again. I'd rather devote my time and ienergy to other activities. Maybe to another post even? ;)

The view of the Tower Bridge from the Tower walls is stunning. The day was rainy and grey, but it was still amazing. After all, it's London anyway.

We spent around 3 hours in the Tower. Later, we went for a walk along the Thames River. Enjoying the views, spending  lovely day outside.

I wanted to walk the Millennium Bridge. Walk the narrow streets of the City. Go to King's Cross. And we did all that, of course. You don't say no to a pregnant woman ;) We sat by the river next to the Millennium Bridge. With a view of the City and St. Paul's Cathedral. Having lunch with such a view can never get boring, can it? ;)

I only missed one thing,actually. When we were walking the Millennium Bridge, there was no black cloud or smoke moving over it, it didn't start swirling, there were no deatheaters anywhere around...

Luckily, there's always King's Cross for some Harry Potter experience. The cart stuck in the wall on the way to platform 9 and 3/4. And the Harry Potter shop next to it. Although I have to say that I remember the cart being in a different place. Before there was a shop, of course. But I might be wrong. Aaand back in the days when we first saw it, there was no line to taking a picture with the cart, even though it was end of August. And now, in March, if we wanted to take a picture with it, we would have had to wait for like 30 min, more or less. Things change (and staircases change, remember? ;)).

Finally, the last of the last. Carcassonne.

Believe it or not (I don’t think I believe it myself), but I’m about to write the last post on our Eurotrip2016. Took a lot of time, much more than I anticipated, but it’s here. Well, almost. I’m just starting to write it, after all. 

For the last few posts on the topic, we’re already on our way up north. Back home, that is. Having seen parts of France, Northern Spain, Portugal, Southern Spain and Gibraltar, we started our way back up. Through Granada, Cordoba, Avila, Segovia we got to Andorra and after crossing the French border, we got to Carcassonne. At first, we wanted to spend the night somewhere in the neighbourhood and hit the town and the castle in the morning, but it turned out we got there early enough to still see it on that particular day. Since the kids already wanted to head back home, that seemed like a good idea. 

We parked the car and had a good look at the medieval town from the other side of the river. It looked impressive. We crossed the bridge and started walking up to the town walls. It was as I could remember from many moons back – crowded. 

 

First, we walked to the church. We got inside. It looked deserted, but full of mystery at the same time. Or maybe that’s why it felt that way. Then we walked along the town walls towards other parts of the town. We had nothing in mind, nothing in particular. We just wanted to see it. To touch it. To walk the narrow streets, to see the town from the boardgame we play. And that’s exactly what we did.

We didn’t get into the castle itself. We didn’t feel like standing in line to get there. And none of us wanted it desperately to try and convince the others to change their minds. Instead, our kids took us to… 

 

Drumroll (yes, that requires drumrolls, as even in my wildest dreams I couldn’t imagine that with my kids, as young as they still were, I would visit…)… Torture Museum. Yup, you read it right. It was a museum dedicated to all (or at least many) of the tortures that were associated with witchcraft. The accusations, the trials and the tortures. All that stuff. Sure, I got some new ideas of how to torture my husband (that I couldn’t imagine were even possible), sorry hun. I haven’t used them yet, though (for now, my own ideas seem to be enough, thank you very much). But honestly, it was horrible. I never thought people came up with so many ways and so many utensils to hurt other people. And just because, for no real reason. And the kids asking questions "how was that used" made my head hurt, my imagination running too fast and more often than not, I had to lie not to tell them the truth or simply to divert their attention. It is located in nice buildings, though, and some parts were really interesting. I hated the "garden" part of the exhibition the most.

Right after that, making sure there was nothing more we wanted to see or do in Carcassonne, we were headed for our last night, last campsite in France. It was the second time during this whole trip that we had trouble finding a free spot to sleep. We finally found one, in the middle of nowhere. It was big, well organised, everything ok, apart from the fact that... well, I'm old ;) there was a party till 2 a.m. And it was so loud that I couldn't hear my own thoughts. Kids must have been exhausted after all the sightseeing, though, as they slept all the way through the noise. The next day was a long drive. Southern parts of France were crowded, the sky was black with clouds, at times it was raining very heavily. We got to Germany, near Freiburg, where we spent the night. We planned to spend the last night somewhere closer to Polish border. But once we got near Berlin, the kids said that they can sleep in the car if only we promise to drive straight home. So we stopped right before the border for a longer break (like almost two hours). The kids had a good run, we rested, stretched, had coffee, did everything to be ready for next few hours behind the wheel. But we made it. We got home around 1 a.m. With the kitchen renewal not finished yet. Exhausted. Sad that the trip was over. But happy to be back home. 

Yup, that's it. That's it for our Eurotrip2016. So many things happened since then. It feels more than just 2,5 years ago...