Greenwich Fun Day

I took a few days off work this week to see some exhibitions that I've been wanting to see for awhile. This meant spending a lovely (though chilly) day wondering the streets of historic Greenwich.

 The beautiful Greenwich University. 

First destination was the Nelson, Navy, Nation exhibition at the National Maritime Museum. I thought this was a beautifully done exhibition. There was a lovely range of objects from uniforms to musical instruments, books, weapons and illustrations. There were some amazing paintings - the kind of massive canvasses where you have to step way back to take everything in. The light fixtures on the ceiling looked like sails which was a nice touch. While I thought this was a great exhibition, if you're not that into naval history or war, you should probably give this one a miss.

 Giant Palmier makes me happy...

 There were a lot of these lovely old naval lamps at the museum - it was a hipster dream!

 The tulip staircase at the Queen's House at the National Maritime Museum

After the Nelson exhibition, my flatmate and I went to the Turner exhibition. I was amazed at how wonderfully quiet this exhibition was; there was hardly anyone there which meant I got to wonder around in my own little world, surrounded by these huge Turner masterpieces. A large part of the exhibition was dedicated to Turner's watercolours which was a bit underwhelming since most of them were on loan from the Tate Britain so I'd already seen them there. The large canvasses were amazing of course. There wasn't much of his later work which I thought was unusual since those tend to be his most popular pieces.

 Beautiful painted ceiling in the Queen's House at the National Maritime Museum.

I also went to the Georgian Britain exhibition at the British Library. This exhibition was beautiful. I'm a big map nerd and there were some beautiful old maps of London. Opera music was being played throughout the exhibition which I thought was a nice touch; I don't know why more exhibitions don't have atmospheric music. And, of course, I can't possibly go to the British Museum without buying cupcakes from Peyton and Byrne.

If I had to choose one of the three exhibitions to recommend - I'd probably go for the Turner exhibition. Greenwich might be a bit of a trek but some of the paintings on display are some of the most stunning paintings ever made by man. A lot of the paintings there were also from private collections which means that this is probably you're only chance to see them before they're secreted away.