Wednesday 4 July 2007

Greenwich Park and a walk to the Dome


More than two weeks ago, we visited Greenwich before the Monsoons arrived, which has hijacked our normal Sunday walks. Greenwich is one of my favourite places outside the centre of London. It has a fantastic park, great history, the river and most importantly of all, pubs you can relax in and watch the world go by. We never tire of Greenwich and on this particular visit, we did something different. We drove to Blackheath on the edge of the common, parked the car on the road next to the entrance and walked through the park towards the river. The picture above was taken from the hill next to the Old Royal Observatory and overlooking Canary Wharf, the Royal Naval College and the Maritime Museum. If you walk towards Canary Wharf past the college, you will reach the River and the first pub of note, The Trafalgar Tavern- Dickens favourite Greenwich Pub and written about in his best and my favourite Dickens novel, Our Mutual Friend. Turn right at the Tavern and follow the Thames Pathway signs to the Millianium Dome . The start of the walk is very pleasant and the views of the Thames and Canary Wharf spectacular, but after the last watering hole, be warned, it quickly becomes very industrialised and the factory smells are unpleasant . The walk it self is still fascinating and I am hoping that Greenwich council will invest funds to treeline more of the walk . To reach the Dome, it is a one and half mile walk. On our return, we stopped at the Cutty Sark Tavern and had nice pint of Real Ale whilst watching two fisherman, trying to catch Eels and Dace in an ever cleaner River Thames . It took us 4 hours to walk about 5 miles and that does include a couple of pub stops.

1 comment:

Confidential Rick said...

Thanks for that memory CND. I used to go to secondary school in Greenwich and spent many happy lunch hours in and around Greenwich Park. Top place.