Greenwich was an area of London that we didn’t spend much time in when we lived in West London many years ago, so on a recent visit to London we decided to head south of the river to visit Greenwich. Blessed with a glorious sunny day, we wondered why we had never done this properly before! Here’s how to plan the perfect day trip to Greenwich from London.
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Arrive in style by taking the boat to Greenwich
Depending on your starting point, travelling to Greenwich by boat along the River Thames is a great way to get there. Why go on the underground when you can sightsee from the boat along the way?
Uber Boat by Thames Clippers
We booked tickets for the Uber Boat by Thames Clippers and picked it up at Embankment Pier. The boat starts in Putney and travels all the way to Barking, with 20 stops along the way. There’s a timetable on the Thames Clipper website, but the boats are regular, usually every 20 minutes.
It takes around 45 mins to travel from Embankment to Greenwich and currently costs around £10.00 per adult ticket (one way). The ticket is valid for any sailing time on your selected day. There’s a nice waiting area called the Clipper Lounge at the Embankment Pier which you can access as part of your Uber Boat ticket – it has lovely views over the river, a bar and bathroom facilities.
Note – it’s cheaper to book your tickets online beforehand. You can also buy a Hop-on Hop-off boat ticket, or a ‘Park and Glide’ a car park and boat combo ticket.
Alternatively, book your Uber Boat tickets through the Get Your Guide App, as follows:
There were plenty of spare seats when we got on at Embankment Pier (although it was a weekday) and we enjoyed views of The Shard, London Bridge and HMS Belfast as we cruised along. When you take the boat, you can also really appreciate how the river twists and curves through the city and the Greenwich peninsula.
Disembark at Greenwich or North Greenwich?
There are two piers in Greenwich. If you disembark at Greenwich Pier then you are straight into the action, directly in front of the Cutty Sark.
North Greenwich Pier works better for access to the O2 Arena or to connect with the Jubilee Underground Line.
The Cutty Sark
If you arrive by mid-morning when you visit Greenwich, then you will have time to explore one of the main attractions before lunch. The first option is the magnificent Cutty Sark (historic tea clipper) which has had a fascinating history having changed its purpose after the Suez Canal affected the transportation of tea, becoming Portuguese, and surviving a hurricane!
Either choose to buy a ticket to board the Cutty Sark (currently £22 per adult ticket) and learn more about its history or just admire it from the outside and head on your way.
Avoiding ‘museum overload’ and combined costs
When you visit Greenwich, there are several significant museums to visit but to visit them all in one day would be costly, time-consuming, and head spinning. For this reason, we chose to visit the Old Royal Naval College over the Cutty Sark because:
- We had previously visited the Cutty Sark with our son when he was a toddler but had never been to the Old Royal Naval College.
- We were visiting with our daughters who we thought would prefer the Old Royal Naval College due to its appearance in the TV Series Bridgeton and appearances in films such as Four Weddings and a Funeral, The Madness of King George and our favourite, Muppets Most Wanted!
My advice would be to research all the museums ahead of your visit and then pick one or two for your trip. Our heads were full of facts by the end of our day in Greenwich and we only skimmed the surface of what’s available.
If you are visiting one or two of the paid museums in Greenwich then a Royal Museums Day Pass can be more cost effective.
Old Royal Naval College & Painted Hall
Located right next to Greenwich Pier, the Old Royal Naval College is a UNESCO World Heritage Site for Maritime Greenwich. It is a collection of grand buildings in a stunning position on the Thames with views across to the City of London.
Royal Palace – the College is built on the site of a former Royal Palace (the Palace of Placentia, AKA Greenwich Palace built in 1443) which was the birthplace of Henry VIII, Mary I and Elizabeth I, although the original palace no longer exists having been abolished by Charles II.
Royal Navy’s Hospital – the buildings you see today were designed by Sir Christopher Wren (designer of St Paul’s Cathedral) between 1696 and 1712 to serve as the Royal Navy’s Hospital in Greenwich.
Naval College and training centre – after the hospital closed in 1969, the buildings became a training centre for the Royal Naval College until 1998, since when it has been preserved as a cultural destination and museum.
The Painted Hall (Britain’s Sistine Chapel)
We booked tickets to visit the Painted Hall (£17.50 per adult ticket) and picked up a guided tour which was fascinating and really brought this beautiful room to life.
The Hall was painted over 19 years by Sir James Thornhill who was a relative unknown at the time and therefore relatively cheap, however the finished palace (1729) certainly got him noticed:
- Britain’s Sistine Chapel – the designs are mainly Baroque and cover every inch of the walls and ceilings, hence why it is sometimes referred to as Britain’s Sistine Chapel.
- 3D effects – Thornhill used illusion in this painting to give 3D effects on flat surfaces, such as on the columns which are flat and not ridged as they appear to the eye.
- Stories and people – the paintings include Kings and Queens, Greek and Roman Gods, and the benefactors of The Painted Hall, with scenes marking key naval battles and the history and politics of the day.
- Food fight – having once been used as a dining room for the Greenwich Pensioners, you can see some signs of clear up on the walls where food had been thrown!
- Lord Nelson – there is a stone flag in the floor engraved to mark where Lord Nelson once lay-in-state in 1806 before his funeral in St Paul’s Cathedral.
The Painted Hall is incredibly detailed, so the longer you stand and look at the paintings, the more you see, but having a guided tour was invaluable to find out more about what we were looking at and how it was painted. I would recommend this to get the most out of the experience.
Skittle Alley
A ticket to the Painted Hall also gives you access to the Skittle Alley, built in Victorian times to help relieve the boredom of the Pensioners living at the Royal Hospital. These skittles are the pre-cursor Ten-Pin bowling.
You can even have a go when you visit, using the hardwood skittles which used to be practice cannon balls!
The Chapel
Before exiting the building, pop into the Chapel of St Peter and St Paul, a beautiful, airy chapel with a stunning ceiling decorated in pale blue and gold. It’s a stunner and nice for a moment of quiet contemplation.
Lunch at Greenwich Market
Leave the Old Royal Naval College by the gates nearest to the Cutty Sark and visit Greenwich Market established in 1737 to seek out lunch (just a 4-minute walk). This covered market is an attractive space fille with bunting, craft and antique stalls, and numerous world food vendors so you can do some shopping and find lunch.
Alternatively, opt for a more substantial lunch at one of the town’s many eateries.
National Maritime Museum (free to visit)
After refuelling at Greenwich Market stroll to the National Maritime Museum just 4 minutes’ walk away.
We decided to save exploring this enormous and important museum for another time and popped in to see the temporary Astronomy Photographer of the Year Exhibition instead. Again, free to visit but it was advised to book a time slot on-line to ensure entry in case it was busy.
This relatively small exhibition was superb – a collection of the world’s greatest space photography – and the photos were just mind-boggling. People of all ages and nationalities had captured the skies in all their glory, from Aurora Borealis to the Milky Way, close ups of the fiery sun to the calmness of the moon, eclipses, shooting stars, time-lapse skies, the list goes on…..
Check to see what’s on when you visit Greenwich. There was also an exhibition about Pirates on at the Museum.
Queen’s House & Tulip Staircase (free to visit)
When you come out of the National Maritime Museum turn right and walk a couple of minutes to the Queen’s House.
This beautiful white villa was commissioned in 1619 as a retreat for Anne of Denmark, the wife of King James 1 of England. Apparently, the house was an apology offering from King James who had lost his temper with Anne when she accidentally shot one of his dogs whilst on a hunt!
When the Queen’s House was built it was acclaimed for breaking away from the traditional red brick Tudor designs. Sadly, Anne never saw the full impact of the house as she died of TB before it was finished. The house itself then remained unfinished for several years until Queen Henrietta Maria insisted it was completed, finally in 1635.
The Queen’s House has large windows with an incredible view over the bend in the river Thames and across to the City of London. In fact, Queen Mary II asked for one thing when Sir Christopher Wren started designing the Old Royal Naval College in front of it – that the view from the Queen’s House should remain uninterrupted down to the Thames. This is why the buildings of the Old Royal Naval College were not built as a full quadrant as Wren had hoped!
The Tulip Staircase (see featured photo) in the Queen’s House is just gorgeous – a striking white stone spiral staircase with a royal blue iron railing featuring a tulip design. It is the first self-supporting spiral staircase in Britain. You can enter the staircase from the top floors and make your way down the spiral to ground level which allows for good photos to be taken.
After the English Civil War, no more monarchs lived in the house, and it was used for visitors and as a grace and favour premises. The Queen’s House now displays items from the National Maritime Museums Collection. In fact, it was so jam-packed with paintings and exhibits that we said we would need to return to enjoy it with more time.
Nelson’s Ship in a Bottle
Exit the Queen’s House and walk around it, through the Colonnade to the back, and head towards the other entrance of the National Maritime Museum where you will find Nelson’s Ship in a Bottle. This is an artwork by Yinka Shonibare featuring a scaled down replica of Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson’s ship, HMS Victory, used in the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805.
It was created for the Fourth Plinth Project in Trafalgar Square and was displayed there in 2010, before moving to its home in Greenwich in 2012.
The Royal Observatory and the Prime Meridian Line
Now, get your aerobic exercise done for the day with a short hike up the hill to the Royal Observatory, Prime Meridian Line, and a fantastic view of Canary Wharf!
Adult tickets to the Royal Observatory were £24.00 at the time of writing, and you can add on a guided tour for £5 and a Planetarium session for £12.00, however it then becomes quite expensive if you are visiting several places in Greenwich on the same trip.
Before you visit Greenwich, check out the Greenwich Museums ticket deals for the most cost-effective options.
As the Planetarium wasn’t open on the Thursday we visited, we just paid to look around the museum exhibits, see the Camera Obscura view of the London skyline, check out the Great Equatorial Telescope and stand on the Prime Meridian Line.
The Prime Meridian Line
Seventh Astronomer Royal, George Biddell Airy, commissioned the enormous telescope that still defines the Prime Meridian and is housed in the Observatory. The Prime Meridian is the line of 0° longitude running from the North Pole to the South Pole and dividing the Earth into the Eastern and Western Hemispheres.
The Prime Meridian of the world was agreed by international convention in 1884 and still forms the basis of the World’s time zones today. You can stand over the meridian line with one foot in the East and one in the West.
Greenwich Mean Time (GMT)
The Royal Observatory supplies Greenwich Mean Time – mean time is ‘fixed length clock time’, rather than solar (astronomical) time which varies throughout the year. Each day measured by a clock has the same length and so is the best way of standardising time, so everyone knows what time it is wherever they are.
From 1833 astronomers raised and dropped the red time ball on the top of the Observatory building daily to signal to mariners on the Thames when it was 13.00 hours (1.00pm). In 1852, technology advances meant that the nation could be sent the time by telegraph. In addition, visitors to Greenwich Park could get the time from the Shepherd Gate Clock on the outside of the Observatory gates.
GMT was the international standard of time until 1972 until it was replaced by Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), however GMT is still the legal time in Britain in the winter (before the clocks are adjusted forwards for 6 months).
Refreshments at the Trafalgar Tavern overlooking the river
Once your head is full of information and you’ve taken in the incredible views from the terrace, then head down the hill towards the Trafalgar Tavern on the river Thames (10 minute walk). There is so much bunting outside that you can barely see the pub!
If you can grab a trestle table outside and the weather is good, then sit and enjoy the river views across to the O2. Alternatively, the inside of the pub is also nice and full of nautical decoration.
Walk along the tow path to the Greenwich Tunnel
When you’re ready to return to the city, walk along the river tow path back towards the Cutty Sark, admiring a different view of the Old Royal Navy College to your left.
Then pick your transport home:
- Boat – return on the boat to your starting point.
- DLR – if the Cutty Sark Docklands Light Railway (DLR) station is open, take this to the city.
- Greenwich Tunnel – walk under the River Thames through the pedestrian Greenwich Tunnel to the Isle of Dogs and pick up the DLR from Island Gardens station to Bank, then change onto the underground.
Walking through the Greenwich Tunnel built in 1902 was quite a novelty and, in many ways, iconic as it has featured in films, such as, 28 Weeks Later.
Note – the lifts were not working and so it did involve a lot of steps at each end of the tunnel. But once you emerge at Island Gardens, you can reward yourself with the ‘Canaletto view’ of Maritime Greenwich across the water.
Final thoughts…
We only visited for a day, however, could easily have stayed in Greenwich and split the museums and sightseeing over a couple of days. The good news is that everything is close together when you visit Greenwich making it a pleasure to explore.
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