After exiting a very crowded tube station we followed the bulk of the people as they headed into Notting Hill proper and initially set ourselves up in a spot away from the main throng in order for me to take some pictures and for my wife to calm down a little; as it turned out she wasn’t so great with big crowds of people and was paranoid in particular with anyone getting close to me on account of the camera equipment I was carrying. While there are always going to be criminals in any large gathering of people (that’s statistics for you!) our experience was perfectly fine, I’m usually very aware of my surroundings even when the viewfinder is pressed up to my eye, and there were plenty of mostly grumpy-looking police officers around to deter potential thieves.

Other people who either didn’t want to be among the Notting Hill Carnival crowds or who simply had access to a decent, elevated viewpoint took advantage of altitude to observe the goings-on on the London streets below them.

The people attending the carnival hadn’t entirely seemed very happy when we first arrived. The music was loud, food and drinks were plentiful, but there was definitely a staid look prevalent on the faces we saw and photographed. However, as we moved off a couple of times and got closer to the location of where the parade would be going through things improved somewhat. Alcohol may have played a part but there was certainly more interaction with people with cameras, more smiling, some dancing, etc.

I can’t imagine what it must be like to live in an area like Notting Hill during the annual London carnival. I suppose some people will love the coming together of the community and the generally happy spirit it all conveys. I suspect some people hate every moment. I think it’s somewhere I’d probably enjoy living especially having access to so many great photography opportunities every August.

I liked the Notting Hill Carnival a lot and would love to go again. I’m not sure my wife would, though. In addition to her general dislike of being in the presence of so many strangers the thing that really stuck with her was just how much rubbish was discarded on the streets. It’s understandable that with the dangers of terrorism these days bins are removed or sealed up at large events like this so I wasn’t so bothered by it all and I’m sure the organisers and volunteers do a fantastic job of cleaning up after things like this or they wouldn’t continue to have them.

HMS Belfast was the penultimate Town-class light cruiser built for the British navy and one of two Edinburgh-class subclass vessels. Launched in March 1938 she saw action in World War II (after a few years of extensive repairs following damage from a mine late in 1939) in numerous Arctic battles and convoys and played a role in the D-Day landings at Normandy. In the early 1950s HMS Belfast was attached to the US Navy briefly to assist in the Korean War but was then detached in order to perform naval operations in an independent manner. In the 1960s the ship was decommissioned and put into reserve, and for some time was moored not far from us in Portsmouth at Fareham creek awaiting the order to be scrapped. It was at this time that the Imperial War Museum floated the possibility of preserving the ship in its entirety and she was eventually handed over to a trust, towed to London, fitted out as a museum, and opened to the public in 1971.

As you first board HMS Belfast your tickets are checked and you’re handed a map of the ship and given the opportunity to take a free audioguide around with you. With our limited time aboard owing to our upcoming sporting engagement we knew we wouldn’t really be able to fully appreciate the extended information at each of the audio points on the ship so just made do with the map. As you can see there are nine levels to the ship and in our time aboard we managed to get from the highest point to the lowest clambering up and down the ladders.

It should be noted that when you’re on HMS Belfast the ladders that take you up and down the decks are very steep and often narrow (warships don’t really have the luxury to accommodate the space for easier steps as you can probably appreciate). Almost all the routes up and down are one-way to prevent people trying to come up when others are coming down and you can see this on the yellow arrows on the map. Because of the steepness of the steps you descend much as you ascend with your back away from the rungs. You can expect to bang your shins or knees or head at some point because we did and we overheard two other people exclaim loudly variations of “Agh! Not again!” It’s all part of the experience.

The boiler and engine rooms on the lower levels are particularly interesting to explore. While they’re jam-packed with pipes, gauges, levers, railings, more pipes, dials, buttons, wheels, and even more pipes it never really felt claustrophobic there (at least, not for us, but it’s worth considering if it’s something that bothers you). Probably the most unnerving point of visiting this area of the museum ship was coming across the sign that indicated we were 4.5 metres below the waterline. The other signs that generated a smidge of concern were the frequent warnings about asbestos. From an aesthetic point of view the almost steampunk impression due to the volume of brass pipes and analogue dials was beautiful to see.

On the main deck are the gun turrets and it’s here you’ll find most people trying to take selfies. Additionally, you’ll get some lovely views across the River Thames to various London landmarks such as Tower Bridge and the Tower of London. Climbing up the remainder of the levels allows you to visit the Admiral’s Bridge, Gun Direction Platform, Operations Room, Compass Platform, and Admiral’s and Captain’s Sea Cabins.

We knew that our visit to HMS Belfast would be fleeting but assumed we’d see enough in the hour to satisfy us. I’m not sure that it did. I’d have liked to have spent at least double the amount of time we were there in order to fully listen to an audioguide on the way around and to take a little more time examining some of the machinery and taking more photographs. If you or any member of your family has an interest in wartime history or ships or just want to see a museum that’s slightly different from the norm then HMS Belfast is a fabulous way to spend anywhere up to half a day. There’s even a café onboard which would help to break up or reward any trip around the ship. As fans of modern cruising we particularly liked comparing small elements of the naval ship with modern liners such as the “promenade deck” area, the cabins, and the galley. HMS Belfast is well worth a visit.

Something Awful, if you don’t know, has been very influential on the internet, and if you don’t believe me then Wikipedia says so too. For many years at the turn of the millenium I was a member, mostly because the front page writing was similar to what I was putting on my own site at the time and the Photoshop Phriday feature was something I enjoyed a lot. But, in addition to interacting with juvenile-minded adults in an online capacity, I also attended some Goon Meets in London (a Goon being a member of the forums, and a Meet being exactly what you think it is). Not only that, I brought my girlfriend (now wife) along too. That’s right: we were meeting people off the internet for real back when everyone still said it was dangerous to do that, risk-taking bastards that we are.

So, thanks to a random video popping up and triggering a lot of memories and a little bit of searching, here’s a selection of my Photoshop Phriday submissions and some photos from Goon Meets attended between 2002 and 2004.

Photoshop Phriday

Now, right from the start, let me just say this: these were different times. Some of this might not now reflect an older me with more of life’s formative experiences behind him but something about censorship I learnt a long time ago from Arnold Epstein in Biloxi Blues – once you start compromising your thoughts, you’re a candidate for mediocrity – remains part of my psyche, so here they are anyway.

Photoshop Phridays were themed and some themes appeared in varying formats over and over again.

War is hell, as are some of these submissions.

Magazine covers were popular because they’re pretty easy to do.

Movie posters was another theme that made a lot of appearances over the years.

There was also an art/movie crossover that I participated in.

Breakfast cereal packaging cropped up a few times, one of them being movie-related.

Television shows.

Games, both physical ones and computer games.

Robots doing unexpected things.

Insect sports.

Animal mash-ups was one theme I really enjoyed.

And the rest.

London Goon Meets

We attended five Goon Meets in total between August 2002 and January 2004, although photos were only taken at the first four of those. The following map was from one of the meetings but I’ve no idea which one, although it will give you some of the names of the people to meet up.

Meetings typically involved one or two pubs and the Namco Station (as it was then called) featured more often than not. As far as what was discussed… not a clue. Probably recalling some of the crazy hijinks that went on in a daily basis in the Something Awful forums. Goon Meets were arranged for no real reason in particular but if a visitor from foreign shores was in the country then that was usually a trigger so some of these photos will include some Americans. Your challenge is to spot them.

From August 2002:

Most of the photos were taken at this first event, and on a pretty awful digital camera. I think this might have been Jeet’s birthday (he’s the hairless human).

From October 2002:

This would not be the only example of clambering atop statuary in London, nor the last appearance of that fine, feathered hat.

From January 2003:

From September 2003:

More statue-climbing, more hat. Just like I promised.

London Hotel: Holiday Inn – Heathrow M4, Junction 4

We can drive from our home to Heathrow in about an hour and fifteen minutes. With a midday flight we could easily have driven up in the morning but that presumes there won’t be any traffic problems and that the alarm will go off and that trees won’t have fallen down and blocked our road off and that the bridges that connect Portsmouth to mainland England aren’t hit by meteorites and it simply adds a stress to the start of a holiday that we don’t need so we will typically book a hotel before any flight these days if it doesn’t eat up any of our annual allowance. We’d previously stayed at the Holiday Inn – Heathrow M4, Junction 4 ahead of our flight to Asia for our Diamond Princess cruise the year before and had found it suited our needs perfectly so we booked it again.

We gave our name at reception to the wide-smiling guy there who made small talk while he typed away to find our reservation. At the time of booking I’d taken advantage of an offer to get a really cheap room and had requested a Queen bed configuration. That had triggered a reply from the hotel to state that they couldn’t guarantee that request but that they’d do their best on the day we arrived. With it being for the single night we weren’t that bothered. Our expectation, therefore, was for a room with two singles.

“Okay, we’ve given you an upgrade tonight. You’ll be in an Executive Room.”

“Really? For what we paid? Are you sure?”

“Shut up and let the man do his job, Mark.”

“Oh yeah, of course. Very sorry.”

And so, for ridiculously little money we found ourselves in an upgraded room for the evening. This one, to be precise:

A very nice room indeed with just the one tiny gripe to report should you be considering a stay at this hotel: the lighting was a pain. It was impossible to have the bedside lights on without the light by the door on too which would have been fine had that light not been fitted with a 200 gigawatt bulb. Perhaps that’s how executives like to sleep.

The reason we’d first chosen this hotel near Heathrow in which to stay in had been because of its proximity to a few pubs. In fact, there’s one – The Plough – mere metres from the hotel entrance. It’s not a pub with a huge range of beer but what it does have, it keeps well. It’s also not a pub with a vast range of food, but again, it’s prepared quickly, is a decent size, and is perfectly acceptable fare. When you consider, though, that the pub probably sees an incredible turnover of customers through its doors owing to its closeness to the hotel and travellers using its services, the one thing that stands out for us is the service which we’ve found on two occasions now to be superb: friendly and fast. When we walked in this time the pub was rammed – a marked contrast to our October visit of the year before – and we accepted immediately that food wouldn’t be an option so we’d grab a drink then head back to the hotel. But no, a member of staff saw us look around at tables, asked if we were after food, then gave us a spot that somebody else had reserved because they were either late or possibly not due for a while and could potentially be reseated. Fabulous stuff. That’s the sort of thing that endears you to a place. We had a couple of burgers – plenty of Indian spices in them if you like that sort of thing – washed down with some beers followed by a gin each. Well, we were on holiday!

Back to the hotel then and the chance to have a nightcap or two before bed and the excitement to come. The day after. There would be no excitement in the bed unless you count an exclamation of “Ooh, it’s nice and dark in here!” after the lights are switched off as exciting.

Opposite reception in the lobby of the Holiday Inn Heathrow was a well-stocked bar and plenty of seating. The decor was clean, if a little spartan, but that’s big hotels the world over for you.

We can definitely recommend this hotel. It’s got a very nearby pub if you don’t fancy eating or drinking in the hotel. It’s got a very pleasant bar. It’s got fabulously friendly staff. It’s just a few minutes away from the airport car parks. It gave us an upgrade. We can also recommend the pub.

Heathrow Airport, Terminal 3

We parked up in the Terminal 5 Long Stay Car Park and took the shuttle bus to the airport where we boarded the train to Terminal 3. Why did we park at Terminal 5? Because that’s where our flight back would bring us and we wanted to skip the additional time of the train on the return home as we’d be getting back late in the evening. Interestingly, after never having had this issue before, our last three flights abroad for cruises have all flown out of and back into different terminals. In the previous two instances we flew out from T5 and back into T3 whereas this one was the opposite. Kinda annoying as it means you’ve got to lug luggage around (well, what else would you do with luggage?), but it did give us the opportunity to see what Terminal 3 had to offer in terms of concessions as this would be our first time flying out from it.

For the most part Terminal 3 was simply a slightly smaller version of Terminal 5 but it had one bonus over its numerically-superior sibling: no fucking Wetherspoons. We no longer visit Wetherspoons by choice but it’s still a haunt of ours if flying when it’s the only good option for breakfast and a drink. It was so nice to not have to suffer supporting that horrible, horrible business. It used to be good and we used to support it around the country when we travelled but we started to notice a marked downturn in the clientele over the years (family-friendly, traditional ale-based establishments were all becoming lager-drinking, noisy shitholes), a reduction in quality of food and range of drink, and cleanliness slacking. And, of course, then the anti-EU tirades of its CEO started in earnest to try to make excuses for the noticeable decline and what was simply an attempt to be able to pay his staff lower wages and remove their employment rights. He’s a horrible shit of a man and it’s a horrible chain. We’re so glad Terminal 3 doesn’t have one.

What’s that? You didn’t come here for the anti-Wetherspoons rant? Well, nobody’s forcing you to stay.

Anyway, back to the travelogue. If we’re heading off on a flight then we’re having food in the airport and we’re having a drink. It’s an ale for me; it’s a Bloody Mary for my wife. As this was our breakfast time we both went pretty holiday-traditional for us too with scambled eggs and smoked salmon coming my way and Eggs Benedict being my wife’s fancy foodstuff of choice.

The flight to Barcelona took off on time and landed on time. As it was short haul there was no entertainment to be viewed or free snacks or drinks to be consumed so a decent amount of reading was had instead. Security was a breeze because we’re still in the EU. Just. A short delay ensued at baggage reclaim in Barcelona, though, as handlers were on strike and it was taking longer to get the cases through the system as a result. As we’d had our bags lost on our last flight out to Chile (see: Flight Issues, Luggage Issues, And Stress To Start A Cruise) there was a small twinge of consternation when the carousel ground to a halt with no sign of our cases again but at least we weren’t alone this time, with the vast majority of people on our flight also looking around with mild concern on their faces. After several minutes it all started up again, though, and we were soon through, found our Princess representatives, waited in the allocated spot for a few minutes, then were taken to the bus and were off on our way shortly after.

Emerald Princess In Barcelona

Arriving mid-afternoon at the cruise terminal was a vastly different experience to arriving in the morning. We’re used to crowds of people and being able to waltz past them because of our priority boarding status but the lateness of our arrival coupled with the fact that this ship was doing a series of back-to-back 7-nighters (so there was a considerable number of people aboard who were part-way through a 14 or 21-night cruise and didn’t need to be processed again) meant that the terminal space that could possibly have handled upwards of a thousand people in it only had to deal with the dozen of us who’d been on the bus. Check-in was subsequently lightning fast and in no time we were on Emerald Princess and hunting down our room to drop off our hand luggage.

We were staying in room C219. It was a little farther forward than we typically stay but it’s the deck and general location we favour: ten forward. On this class of cruise ship it also has the bigger balcony we like. I’ve posted photos of the rooms aboard Princess ships on numerous occasions and they’re all pretty much of a muchness now so no pictures this time around. Instead, just the observations that we missed the bedside lamps with USB chargers built in that we’d made lots of use of on our last trip but it was nice to see the technology in place ahead of the Ocean Medallion installation, due to be activated on Emerald Princess in the latter half of 2020. Not exactly “coming soon” but nice anyway.

Some people make heading for the buffet their first action on board. We alternate between heading off to take some photos or grabbing a drink as quickly as possible to post pictures of and annoy friends and family back home. On this occasion we went the latter route and made our way to Crooners at the top of the piazza. The last three Princess ships we’ve been on have had Crooners on the opposite side of the piazza so this was initially quite confusing for us. Emerald shares its design most closely with Crown Princess which we’ve cruised on twice before (and have two upcoming trips on for next year) so it shouldn’t have been that much of a shock and yet our minds seemed to have forgotten that detail. The drink helped us get over it.

Our original flight to Barcelona had been scheduled for later in the day and had we taken it we’d have missed the mandatory safety briefing and would have had to attend one for late arrivals. That and issues with the flight on the year’s earlier cruise from South America had led to me moving the flight forward enough to make sure we were on the ship in plenty of time to attend the main muster. It’s something that Princess does well and this was no exception, with the whole thing running to maybe fifteen minutes from our arrival in the theatre to being told we could leave. Our muster out of the way, we decided to check out Vines at the bottom of the piazza and make ourselves known to the staff there as we suspected we’d be regular visitors.

Drinks prices are not great on Princess but you know this and you accept it and you don’t moan about it on forums online and concoct devious ways to smuggle on your own alcohol because that just makes you look like a tightwad. One tip you can work out for yourself if you’re not a complete numbskull when it comes to arithmetic is that if you’re planning on drinking a couple of glasses of wine each then it works out more cost-effective to buy a bottle. An added bonus there is it means you’re getting a bottle freshly-opened just for you. A second tip is to make the first thing you say to the waiter in Vines “So, which of these reds don’t you have?” because a) you’re a person of taste who only drinks red wine and, b) I guarantee there will be at least three unstocked options from the list and you want to avoid all those “Oh, I’m sorry, we don’t have any of that right now but we might be having some dropped in by Chinook on our next sea day” excuses you can see the staff frantically making up on the spot when you ask for them.

We’d pre-booked speciality dining for a few nights of this week’s cruise but the first night wasn’t one of them so we headed off to the main dining room and said yes, we’d be happy to share with other people. We generally don’t mind sharing with other people because it’s always nice to remember you’re better than them in every way and in that respect this meal experience didn’t let us down. What we don’t like doing is sharing on a table for ten because the meal… just… str-e-t-c-h-e-s… on… for-e-v-e-r… Sadly for us, that’s exactly what happened, so we ate and smiled and nodded and only got into the smallest of barb-slinging attacks on the gun-rights fundamentalists on the table as we tried to find the earliest opportunity to pretend we had somewhere else we absolutely needed to be.

We absolutely needed to be away from those people so we popped into Explorer’s Lounge for a drink where we discovered a brand new drinks menu we’d not seen before. Oh, if only someone had taken photos of the new Explorer’s drinks menu! Oh, someone did.

We had a drink, naturally, then decided to check out a venue we’d been fond of when we’d cruised on Crown Princess in the Baltic Sea, that being Adagio’s Bar. It was decidedly dead which was partly to be expected as our Crown cruise had been when the BOGO was still in use and this had been one of the BOGO locations. Its distance from the heart of the ship makes it practically impossible to walk past and decide to just drop in so it really needs a promotion of some description to draw in customers. We had expected it might have somebody in it as it was next door to the Share dining venue (one of the locations we would eat at later in the cruise) but no.

Still, there was another reason to check out Adagio’s and that was to use its rear entrance and make our way onto the aft terrace as the time had come for Emerald Princess to finally leave Barcelona and begin our cruise properly. Owing to the lateness of the evening there was no loud deck party and no sounding of the ship’s horn as we headed away from the Spanish port. It was a very pleasant, quite serene end to the first day of the cruise.

Day two, covered in the next post in this travelogue series, would be spent at sea and will include speciality dining in Crown Grill.

London is more-or-less reachable from our house in just over an hour. Despite the reasonable proximity – an American might even consider things an hour away to be classified as local – we haven’t ever frequented London one tenth as much as we possibly could. I think a large part of that is that the cost of public transport in the UK is horribly expensive and driving up there eliminates the option of stopping for a drink. Regardless, because we don’t visit London very often we haven’t seen a huge amount of it so we’d never been to the British Museum before and this felt like a good chance to see how we liked it.

Briefly looking at the building, since I’m a bit of an architecture-fan, the British Museum was founded in the 1750s but the main, neoclassical structure that people walk around today and that we visited in 2009 is from nearly a century later owing to the need to expand in order to incorporate all the artifacts appropriated from around the world. One of the most distinctive areas inside is the very modern, glass-roofed Queen Elizabeth II Great Court which was designed by Norman Foster and opened to the public in 2000.

Onto the photos from inside the British Museum then. I didn’t take too many photos (for me) and only a few have any people in the picture but some areas were really quite busy when we visited. A fond memory of this side-trip was the number of other American Football fans present also taking a look around; like us, they were easily identified by the NFL jerseys they were wearing. See, you can be interested in history and in sports.

Let me point out that these were taken with my first DSLR and using a cheapish zoom lens. The sharpness in photos I tend to like today isn’t there because the glass quality was only average and I wasn’t quite as used to taking lighting conditions into account and adjusting ISO accordingly quite as much as I do now. Also, I will have limited information about the items on display in the museum that I took pictures of because this all happened quite a while ago and we had in total around 90 minutes visiting the British Museum which, it turned out, was about two days short of what we really could have done with. But you’re only really here for the pictures anyway, so let’s take a quick look around.

The column below on the left originally came from the Acropolis in Athens, from the Erechtheion rather than the Parthenon. The female figure column to the right is a Caryatid from the same building. Both were taken by Lord Elgin and later sold to the British Museum. Beneath the two columns is a photo of the infamous Elgin Marbles. Less spherical and glassy than you might imagine.

The Nereid Monument is a tomb believed to have been built around 390 BCE in Lycia, part of the first Persian empire. Its name is derived from the statues between the columns which it’s assumed are nereids (sea nymphs).

There were loads of foreign visitors in the British Museum which was great to see and hear. I recall some French girls talking excitedly around the skeleton and mummified body.

We were very impressed with the quality of some of the Egyptian artwork and how well-preserved the colours were, but it’s understandable that a place like the British Museum is able to source some of the best pieces in the world.

I’ve steered clear of any talk of colonialism and taking things that don’t belong – as the saying goes: opinions are like arseholes; everyone’s got one – and will instead focus on the indisputable fact that the British Museum is an incredible place and rightly regarded as one of the best museums in the world. We didn’t have nearly as long here as we needed and we’d truly want to dedicate the best part of a day to do it any real justice before museum fatigue overcame us.

We did say in 2009 that we’d really need to return despite our aversion to travelling up to London but we haven’t done so yet at the time of writing. Should international travel still prove to be problematic over the next year but things in the UK open up a bit more in the wake of mass-vaccination then a long weekend break to London might yet be in the reckoning – that’s another one of those soft plans floating around our heads – and a revisit to this fabulous place will almost certainly occur should that happen.

This first post will be brief – for me – and simply cover a few details of the hotels we stayed in each side of the Atlantic along with some photos from the plane window flying over America just to break up the imagery of beds and shower units. You might be surprised to learn that the number of people looking for nothing but pictures of beds and shower units on articles about travelling from London to San Francisco is actually quite small.

We flew out of Heathrow so we drove up the night before and booked into the Renaissance Hotel, conveniently close to the long stay parking we’d be making use of the day afterwards. Hotels are more-or-less the same the world over and this one was perfectly fine, with a large and clean bedroom and bathroom.

Another reason for booking this hotel was that it was close to a pub. We can and do eat or drink in hotels but if there is a nearby pub then we like to spread our spending a bit whenever we travel. This was The Three Magpies and we stayed for several.

It was nice to have a reasonably late flight – just after midday – because a lot of flights we take for some reason usually mean we have to set alarms for unearthly hours of the morning. We didn’t have breakfast in the hotel but simply parked our car in the long stay parking for terminals 2 and 3 then hopped on the shuttle bus to the airport. This took a while because there’d been an accident on the only road to the airport but we’d left in plenty of time so didn’t panic overly.

The check-in process took a long time at the airport too because it appeared everyone ahead of us in the queue had some issue or another. When we got to the counter the woman there scanned our passports, looked, checked again, then said “Oh, you’ve filled in everything you needed to do already. I wish everyone was like you.” The world would be a better place, that’s for sure.

We grabbed a breakfast and some pre-flight drinks after security in the airport because that’s travelling law.

Our flight from London to San Francisco was with Virgin. It was a comfortable flight – I did make notes that there were annoying people around us but I can’t remember the details of that – but the food was pretty dire and the windows were the sort that can be tinted dark blue by the crew. They duly did this for part of the flight, stuffing up some otherwise lovely views over Greenland and Canada, but they did return us to normality towards the final stretch of the trip.

There was quite a slow-moving queue at customs in San Francisco but the agent who dealt with us was very friendly. By the time we’d chatted with him and done all the usual security things like take fingerprints and photos we found our luggage already on the carousel at baggage claim.

We stepped out of the doors of the terminal with every intention of looking for signs to taxis but there was a man standing there who said “Taxi?” to us, grabbed our cases, and took them to his limousine. We had no idea how legal this was but the drive to our hotel was great and we enjoyed a long talk with the driver about the local area and his life, got tourist suggestions from him, talked about sport, etc. We were still concerned that the price of the taxi might be extortionate and we might need to engage the use of hotel staff at the destination to sort things out but it was about what we’d been led to expect from looking online so that was fine, and we were happy – well, happy enough given that this is America and expected for arcane worker-exploitation reasons – to tip on top of the job done.

Our day of long delays to get things done continued at the hotel. We walked into the Riu Plaza Fisherman’s Wharf while they were training a new member of staff to use the booking-in system and things didn’t go as planned. We genuinely didn’t mind this, though, because everyone’s got to learn sometimes. We were patient, we smiled, we encouraged, we told the new staff member not to panic and to take his time, and we got a room upgrade either as a result or just because.

In the next post in this cruise travelogue series we’ll head off for a look around the Fisherman’s Wharf area of San Francisco in the evening and enjoy some very good drinks in the hotel bar.

Anyway, to the day afterwards where we decided to take a bit of a look around nearby Greenwich before catching the tube to the train station and heading home.

We made our way to the National Maritime Museum, and from there we took a look around the Cutty Sark which had not long been reopened following restoration work after a fire in 2007. I’d only brought my 100mm macro lens with me (I’d not taken the camera to the gig) so the photos I ended up taking around the nineteenth century clipper ended up being a little bit odd and arguably artsy. Historical Ship Ropes: A Collection.

An odd surprise when visiting the Cutty Sark was finding the Long John Silver Figurehead Collection housed beneath the vessel. A collector of maritime objects, Sydney Cumbers lost an eye as a child and took to wearing an eyepatch that gave rise to his nickname. The 101 figureheads in his collection were donated to the Cutty Sark trust in 1953 after she became a museum ship open to the public.

From the Cutty Sark we walked under the Thames through the 370 metres-long Greenwich Foot Tunnel, opened in 1902, with distinctive entrances beneath glass-domed buildings. It was here that we were treated to another surprising sight in the form of a ballerina posing for a photo-shoot.

A few random photos from the financial district to finish off.

Greenwich is definitely one of the more interesting areas of London and we really ought to return at some point to do it more justice, particularly around the park area to the south of the museum.