Greenwich is where London’s past and future have always been in uneasy, brilliant conversation. The borough that gave the world its sense of time, where Henry VIII was born and the tea clippers raced home, now sits across the river from the O2 and the glass towers of Canary Wharf. The tension between the two is what makes it endlessly interesting.
The World Heritage Site at its heart contains the Royal Observatory, the Old Royal Naval College, the National Maritime Museum and the Queen’s House, all within easy walking distance of each other and all either free or relatively affordable. Greenwich Park is the oldest Royal Park in London, its deer still roaming as they did when Henry VIII introduced them, its hill offering one of the finest panoramas of the city. Greenwich Market, Meantime Brewery, the Cutty Sark pub on the riverfront and the Fan Museum, the world’s only institution dedicated to the art of the fan, fill the rest of a very good day out. The Greenwich Foot Tunnel, taking you under the Thames since 1902, remains one of London’s more quietly extraordinary pieces of Victorian engineering.
World Heritage history meets a genuinely good day out
