The sun is shining again today and it’s even warmer – or hot for British weather. It’s a bank holiday today which means that lots of people get to enjoy the beautiful day. We drive to Greenwich in the southeastern part of London. There’s a huge park around the Royal Observatory where the Greenwich Meridian and the Greenwich Mean Time were set, stretching down to the National Maritime Museum.

We’re here to visit Cutty Sark, a tea clipper built in mid 19th century, once the world’s fastest tea clipper. The ship was conserved as an impressive museum we wanted to visit for a while. It was built to ship tea from China to England – when the aera of steamships started that could use the Suez cannal and reach England in less time. After eight years of carrying tea to the UK, they switched to transporting wool from Australia.

Our visit begins at the lower main cargo deck where we find lots of information and where a short film about the ship is shown.

On the ‘Tweendeck, we continue our visit. One of the displays shows what the meals were like for the 25 crewmen: pea soup with salted pork on weekdays, and potato pie on Sundays.

On deck, we enjoy the beautiful view. The ship has 32,000 square feet of sail in total which equals to a 3000 horsepower engine. Usually, only ships twice its sice had so much sail, that’s why the Cutty Sark was so fast.

When a bell rings, we assemble around the captain who tells us a lot about the ship’s history and his time aboard the Cutty Sark. It’s really interesting and entertaining to listen to him.

The crew lived in the two small buildings on deck. They slept in bunk beds where you would want to be in the upper bed that had at least a tiny window and the advantage that it was less likely to be under water when a large wave went across the ship in heavy sea.

At the stern of the ship, the huge steering wheel turned the ship’s rudder via a thread mechanism.

The ship looks most impressive from below. The glas roof symbolises the water and shows how deep Cutty Sark immersed into the sea. There’s a café and a display of figureheads in the space below the ship.

After visiting the Cutty Sark, we meet Guy and Sherdian and also Clare, Linda and Joke in the park. It’s really relaxing to just sit or lay on the gras, stretch your legs, and do nothing.

Then, it gets time to say goodbye to most of the group. Joke waits for the ship back to Central London (1 hour waiting time due to the many people who came here today) while Linda and Clare travel back by Tube. We take Guy and Sheridan with the car… which just won’t be able to fit 7 people. We stroll along the Thames back to the car and past huge historic buildings that are often used for filming historic films.

We quckly take Guy and Sheridan to the observatory. The view from up there is just stunning.

Then, we head back into Central London. We drop them off at the restaurant they got engaged in several years ago.

Gabi and I drive to Covent Garden where we’re in luck to find a parking spot very close to the old market buildings.

We have dinner at Wagamama – something I really wanted to do before returning to Switzerland. Gabi orders several appetizers. The potstickers (top right on the first photo) will always remind us of Aki’s visit to Switzerland. She prepared a whole pan of them and let me help her. I have my favourite ramen.