Travelers Company

South East London is home to a lush green oasis. Away from the hustle and chaos lies Greenwich. A World Heritage Site situated along the Thames, Greenwich is best known across the world as the home of time.

The Royal Observatory ground at Greenwich is home to Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) and the Prime Meridian, the line that divides the world into eastern and western hemisphere. The line is officially tagged as Longitude Zero, and every city and town in the world is measured according to its distance from this very line, as is time.

It also forms the basis of global navigation systems. Early navigation was charted according to position of the stars. This method proved ineffective, with sailors dying in shipwrecks caused by faulty charting. The Royal Observatory at Greenwich had been set up in 1675 to deal with this very problem; within no time it developed as the leading institution in the study of longitude, trying to perfect navigation charting based on the same. In 1884 Greenwich was officially adopted as the formal international meridian point.

Today brass strips run across the Observatory courtyard. Tourists stand astride, one foot in the eastern hemisphere, one foot in the west and pose for pictures (the lines can grow incredibly long for this one picture!).

But this isn’t all that Greenwich is known for. Close to the Royal Observatory is a fascinating planetarium. And the park that surrounds the area is home to the Queen’s palace, the birth place of Henry VIII, Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth I. Kids play cricket in the park, mothers prepare a picnic spread, bookworms catch up with their reading, as the flow of tourist march in and out. The day is relaxed and endless. It’s a good way to spend time.