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Greenwich Olympia
Jul. 29th, 2012 12:56 pmI went for a walk this morning. I should probably have gone to the gym instead, so, better than doing nothing, but not as good as it should have been. Standard.
I had planned to walk through Greenwich Park, past where they were holding the Equestrian Events and, from the Observatory, taking a picture of the Olympic Park.
No such luck. Greenwich Park is totally shut. It's not just the venue, it's a village for the competitors as well. So instead I walked along General Wolfe Avenue, past the Ranger's House, and then down Croom's Hill into Greenwich.
That brought me to an interesting little sign that I hadn't seen before, in the line of lime trees planted to mark the Queen's Silver Jubilee.
People were already arriving for the day's horseyness, staff as well as customers.
"Army at the Gate!
I walked round the one-way system. Many of the pubs and cafés were open for business by 8.30am, and even the market was getting into gear earlier than usual.
Since Greenwich Cutty Sark is bad far the closest DLR station to the Park, TFL took the obvious decision and closed it. This left customers with a long walk from Greenwich DLR. You can understand their logic here. Greenwich DLR and Greenwich Mainline share the same exit, so from the point of view of the organizers this made things much simpler. For the paying customer, it just made it more inconvenient. The normal cry of the organizers here is "health and safety" (i.e., Cutty Sark just isn't big enough to cope with the footfall), but problems such as this are there to be overcome. Currently the "solution" is just to shut such stations, because no-one can be bothered to work out a solution that requires a brain and some work, rather than an instant reaction and no work.
Entrance for punters -- I reckon people would have walked for 20 minutes from the station to the park -- normally a three-minute walk.
I then walked back up Point Hill to my favourite "secret garden", which is actually a part of Blackheath, but which is cut off from the main part of the Heath.
As you can see, not many people use it.
This gives a great view of many of London's landmarks.
From left to right, the prominent buildings: The London Eye, the Bermondsey recycling plant, the BT Tower (hard to pick out), the Shard, then at the right, the old NatWest tower (now Tower 42), the Gherkin, and the Heron.
I had planned to walk through Greenwich Park, past where they were holding the Equestrian Events and, from the Observatory, taking a picture of the Olympic Park.
No such luck. Greenwich Park is totally shut. It's not just the venue, it's a village for the competitors as well. So instead I walked along General Wolfe Avenue, past the Ranger's House, and then down Croom's Hill into Greenwich.
That brought me to an interesting little sign that I hadn't seen before, in the line of lime trees planted to mark the Queen's Silver Jubilee.
People were already arriving for the day's horseyness, staff as well as customers.
"Army at the Gate!
I walked round the one-way system. Many of the pubs and cafés were open for business by 8.30am, and even the market was getting into gear earlier than usual.
Since Greenwich Cutty Sark is bad far the closest DLR station to the Park, TFL took the obvious decision and closed it. This left customers with a long walk from Greenwich DLR. You can understand their logic here. Greenwich DLR and Greenwich Mainline share the same exit, so from the point of view of the organizers this made things much simpler. For the paying customer, it just made it more inconvenient. The normal cry of the organizers here is "health and safety" (i.e., Cutty Sark just isn't big enough to cope with the footfall), but problems such as this are there to be overcome. Currently the "solution" is just to shut such stations, because no-one can be bothered to work out a solution that requires a brain and some work, rather than an instant reaction and no work.
Entrance for punters -- I reckon people would have walked for 20 minutes from the station to the park -- normally a three-minute walk.
I then walked back up Point Hill to my favourite "secret garden", which is actually a part of Blackheath, but which is cut off from the main part of the Heath.
As you can see, not many people use it.
This gives a great view of many of London's landmarks.
From left to right, the prominent buildings: The London Eye, the Bermondsey recycling plant, the BT Tower (hard to pick out), the Shard, then at the right, the old NatWest tower (now Tower 42), the Gherkin, and the Heron.
