The Big Climb

After the late night last night, Chris and I (Annie) should have had a lie in, really. However, an opportunity to join a photo walk in Greenwich had yesterday presented itself to us, and as Greenwich had been on Chris' photographic wishlist for a while, up we got at the crack of dawn.

The walk was run by Open-City London and despite the very grey tones of the day, was really good. We started at the Cutty Sark, and then spent some time at the beautiful Royal Naval Hospital buildings. Designed by numerous architects including Christopher Wren, and including the stunning Painted Hall (the "finest dining hall in Europe"), these buildings transport you effortlessly to the Seventeenth Century. The blip is one of the stairwells leading from the tunnels beneath the main buildings, looking up - a testament to the detail within the building that these are really just back stairwells, yet still so fine.

We headed from there up to the One Tree Hill in Greenwich Park, where on a better day than today the view would have been stunning, across to Canary Wharf and the city. Today it was still impressive, receding into the cloud, and good to have recced for another, better day.

A walk through the park to the observatory, and then back down through the lovely houses of Greenwich back to our starting point. On the way we passed so many interesting architectural styles, including the newly finished University of Greenwich Library and School of Architecture & Construction. Hard to design a building to fit into a world heritage site and please a school of architects!

While we were over that side of London, we headed over for a look around at the Thamesmead Estate (dystopian backdrop from A Clockwork Orange) and the Thames Barrier.

What a full day, time for a snooze!