Greenwich and the London Eye

Today we visited Greenwich and the Cutty Sark!  The Cutty Sark is a tea clipper which has been preserved as a museum, we opted to skip the museum as the queue snaked around the boat.  

We did hike up to the observatory and admired the view.  At lunch on tope of the hill, we shared a picnic table was a friendly Russian family who now live in London.  The view was quite good, but despite the sunny photos it was freezing.  I’m am starting to suspect that the weather in London is always terrible, although according to the BBC, this is the coldest March in England in 50 years!! 

At Greenwich with the Cutty Sark.

Cutty Sark!

At Greenwich on the dividing line.

View from the observatory at Greenwich

There is sun, but it is not warm.

Inside the National Maritime Museum.

Next we took a Thames Boat back into central London to board the London Eye for a view of the city!  Despite the crowds we were waited only 30 mins to board, although the line was massive.  We did met a friendly grandfather from New Zealand while waiting in line. He was visiting with 3 generations of his family, including his 2 month old grand-daughter.  We walked over to the Tate Modern and enjoyed a beer overlooking the Millenium Bridge, the Thames and St. Paul’s Cathedral.

Big Ben from the London Eye

The Shard.

Buildings at White Hall (mostly the bureaucracy)

Next we headed over to Brick Lane, the traditional heart of London’s Bangladeshi community for dinner.  Unfortunately the Bangladesh community has mostly moved out of the area, and now it’s mostly a tourist trap.  We picked a promising Middle Eastern restaurant, and ran into Yasmina and her friends again!  The chef was Algerian, but the food seemed to be generic Lebanese/Syrian/Palistinean.  After finding out that Dan was Lebanese, a plate of baclava appeared at our table.We were planning to go to a comedy club nearby but couldn’t find the spot, so ended up just heading home.