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 ;)).