Day122 - May 5, 2025 - Monday - Greenwich (London), UK

 We have been to Greenwich before but never arriving from the Thames River.  We entered the mouth of the Thames just before dawn and had a nice cruise up the river.  

As we neared Greenwich, we saw Thames Barrier.  The Barrier is a retractable flood defense system located on the River Thames downstream of central London. It spans over 1700 feet across the river and is designed to protect most of Greater London from exceptionally high tides and storm surges moving up from the North Sea. The barrier has been operational since 1982 and can be closed during high tide to prevent flooding, while at low tide, it can be opened to restore the river's flow towards the sea.

For my technically minded friends, the barrier divides the river into four 200 ft and two approximately 100 ft navigable spans. There are also four smaller non-navigable channels between nine concrete piers and two abutments. The flood gates across the openings are circular segments in cross section, and they operate by rotating, raised to allow "underspill" to allow operators to control upstream levels and a complete 180-degree rotation for maintenance. All the gates are hollow and made of steel up to 40 millimeters (1.6 in) thick. The gates are filled with water when submerged and empty as they emerge from the river. The four large central gates are 66 ft high and weigh 3,700 tons each. Four radial gates by the riverbanks, also about 100 ft wide, can be lowered. These gate openings, unlike the main six, are non-navigable.

I would love to see them in operation!

The above photos as well as the next several were taken from my veranda.

This panorama shows that we were at anchor in the bend of the river.

The shore operation today was interesting.  We anchored in the river next to a large steel floating barge.  We exited the ship onto the barge and then made our way to a commercial ferry which served as the tender.

Our ferry ride.

This boat then took us a whole quarter of a mile to the Greenwich pier.  It was less than a 5-minute ride but the entire loading and unloading took about 20 minutes,

The famous Cutty Shark, the ship not the liquor...

Pretty nice buildings to be over 350 years old.

Royal Navy College Buildings

Queen's House is a former royal residence in the London borough of Greenwich, which presently serves as a public art gallery. It was built between 1616 and 1635 on the grounds of the now demolished Greenwich Palace.

The Royal Observatory, if it hadn't been raining, I would have loved it.

One big ship in a bottle, outside the Maritime Museum.  This artwork replica of HMS Victory, Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson’s flagship at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805 has been displayed outside the museum since 2012.

This is a view of our ship from the Greenwich pier.  I guess we could have swum ashore. 

After our walk in Greenwich, we decided to just return to the ship.  It was 55 degrees, light rain and 15 mph winds.  We needed to get our final packing ready for tomorrow.  Kay and I decided to ship two pieces of luggage back home.  We had enough non-refundable shipboard credit to cover the cost.  This still left us with two more pieces of luggage but managing 2 thru the airport would be much easier than managing 4 pieces.  Our luggage needed to be outside our cabin by 10:00 PM for Viking to get it ashore for us.  Otherwise, we would have to manage it ourselves.

We are to meet in the Atrium at 7:30 tomorrow morning to do our final debarking.