Early in December, I realised that I had done a lot of preparation for Christmas when it came to getting groups of people singing carols but I was missing a vital bit of prep. I hadn’t thought of anything to get Nathan. Don’t feel too sorry for him because he did pretty well in the end but at the time, I was coming up short. So when I spotted a poster for Mars in the tube at Walthamstow, I impulse booked it without even really knowing what it was. That’s the level of planning that went into this day out but it went surprisingly well, considering. I knew it was at the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich but I didn’t think far past that.
I had managed to figure lunch out and had booked a table at Pizza Express but that put a certain amount of pressure on us to actually get to Greenwich on time. We fell at the first hurdle and left Highams Park 14 minutes later than planned. You don’t need all the details but essentially, leaving the house with Eva involves a lot of accessories and she never knows where any of them are. Happily, we assembled everything but not quite on time. So we had to hope for a quick route through Bank to find the DLR.
Hopes are easily dashed, that’s all I’ll say. About halfway through the station, I remembered that there was a flashy new entrance near Cannon Street that was the one we probably should have used, rather than the one outside the Royal Exchange that’s our default. It’s the first one you come to if you’re walking from Liverpool Street and it works fine for the Waterloo and City Line or the Central Line but for the DLR, I’m guessing the new entrance is better. The way we did a 360 of the ticket hall before even going through the gates made me wonder if the station planners were just trolling us but whatever their intentions, the route was not smooth. There were at least two escalators, possibly three, and a travelator as well as lot of walking before we found the DLR platform:
I also briefly considered checking my old post where I’d found a secret DLR entrance in 2016 but assumed it wouldn’t work any more because of the rebuild. And also decided that these were thoughts I needed to have before descending several escalators, not midway.
Anyway, we found the wizard train and went up the rollercoaster at speed, enjoying the slightly misty rooftop view of East London as we went. All was smooth sailing until Cutty Sark station – we were late for our booking but could still make it within the 15 minutes’ grace if we were lucky. An announcement on the train said that there was no escalator service at Cutty Sark station and suddenly I remembered my last visit in 2014 where a 5-year-old Roo and I climbed hundreds of steps to get out. I had assumed that day was just a blip and that there’s usually a better system in place but I hadn’t even considered it until I heard the announcement. Turns out that things have not improved in 11 years – although there are escalators in theory, the Evening Standard reports that they’ve been out of service on and off for years now.
I know. A little research could have solved both ends of this DLR problem but I warned you off the bat, didn’t I? This was not one of my masterpieces of planning.
Anyway, Eva and I decided to queue for the lift and got lucky because, although there were lots of buggies waiting, there was only room for one buggy at a time. But there was room for a buggy plus the two of us so we (politely) managed to skip ahead a bit. And if you’re wondering why Eva couldn’t take the stairs with Nathan and Roo…well, her legs are not legging. That’s her way of putting it anyway.
So we made it to Pizza Express exactly 15 minutes after our booking and thankfully, our table had not been given away. The tables are packed together quite tightly so it was a bit of a squeeze but we were grateful to have any prospect of lunch at all after cutty sarking it so fine.
Lunch was a little while coming because it was so busy in there. I think it arrived 30 minutes after we ordered, which might be payback for us being late. I had a voucher to get a Classic pizza for £1 so ordered possibly the worst option on the menu – the Vegan Giardiniera – because it was worth a try if IO was only paying a pound for it. Reuben was having the American, which is also a Classic, so that got us the deal and allowed Nathan to order a fancy Romana pizza and Eva to have the sides of her choice (garlic bread, dough balls, halloumi bites).
The vegan pizza was actually not too bad and a definite improvement on any other vegan pizza I’ve had. I’m not a vegan by any stretch but I’m trying to stay as dairyfree as possible during the winter months to fend away colds and most places don’t do “dairyfree-but-meaty” options. So super healthy vegan it is and it was not all bad. The side of hot honey dough balls definitely helped to give lunch a bit more variety too.
We finished up just in time to get to our Painted Hall booking at 2 and it was only a few minutes’ walk away. On the way, we got a glimpse of the Cutty Sark itself but didn’t get a chance to look at it properly.
One thing I hadn’t even remembered in my lack-of-planning-brain was that the Royal Naval College is a pretty prolific film set and that one of Eva’s current obsessions – “Les Misérables” – was filmed there. So that was a bit of a bonus as I realised just as we were walking through the gates. It all looked weirdly familiar and then I clicked. It’s also home to scenes from “Bridgerton”, “Pirates of the Caribbean” and a couple of MCU films…so something for all the family. I’ll go out of sequence slightly here to show you Eva’s “Les Mis” photo shoot, which actually happened after Mars:
You’ll notice that she appears to be dressed as an extra from the film, which is odd considering that neither of us clocked the connection until we got there. It is just how Eva dresses though. All the red elements are in honour of going to visit Mars. And the flat cap was something she begged me to buy her in the gift shop. All of which adds up to an on-theme outfit:
All that context means that – 1100 words later – I’ve finally got to the point of this post, which is the visit to the Painted Hall. First thing you need to know is that you need to redeem your paper/mobile tickets in the gift shop, where they give you wristbands before proceeding. I totally missed this sign the first time round:
The second thing to know is that there are no loos in the Painted Hall itself, so probably best to use the ones in the undercroft before you go up. Just head down this corridor:
The closest set of Ladies’ is out of order but there are more at the end of the corridor.
The next thing to know is that there are tours of the Painted Hall at 11.30am, 12.30pm, 1.30pm, 2.30pm and 3.30pm every day, whether or not there’s a special exhibition on. Our entry ticket was for 2pm so we had a bit of time to mooch around and take in the atmosphere before starting the tour. Even without Mars, the Painted Hall is stunning but it was the Red Planet that brought us there so let’s start with that.
It is stunning – 7 metres across and full of detail, with its own haunting soundtrack. It can be hard to know how to interact with such a big piece of artwork but there were people standing or lying underneath it, taking photos “holding” it or standing quietly watching it rotate. Reuben wanted a “holding it” photo. Obviously, no one is actually touching the artwork itself. Let’s be clear about that:
And Nathan was content to gaze up at it:
He also noticed a little smiley face in one of the craters:
Thanks to the information boards, we managed to find Mars the god, who was positioned to be perfectly gazing upon his namesake planet:
There are places to sit along the edge of the Hall, so it was a good place to just sit and enjoy the ambience, as well as looking at all the paintings. We had some time chilling out there before joining the tour, which was led by an exuberant French guy called Vincent. I mention that he’s French because he was talking us through the 18th century context, which wasn’t always flattering to Britain’s closest neighbours. Still, he handled the subject matter deftly, not taking any of it personally as far as I could tell. He was very entertaining and pointed out all the famous – and not so famous – figures who’d been immortalised in this glorious ceiling:
Apparently it was meant to symbolize a time of peace and prosperity in Europe, which distinctly failed to materialize. I found it impossible to count how many wars Britain and the rest of Europe were involved in, even in the 19 years it took to paint the hall…but there were a few. And they got through a few monarchs before completion as well.
The very mention of George I (who appears on one of the walls) made Eva think of George III, which in turn made her want to watch “Hamilton” on Disney+. So you can guess what we did as soon as we got back. But I feel like this has still somehow been educational…in a way.
I would definitely recommend taking the tour if you ever visit the Painted Hall as it really helps you to know what you’re looking at. There’s an almost overwhelming amount to see so a guide comes in very handy. And it means that if one of your kids starts singing “Bohemian Rhapsody” (in the context of being such a “poor boy” that she couldn’t donate to the upkeep of the hall) then they can point to the actual Galileo midway through. Bonus.
We were in there for about 90 minutes in total and could have stayed longer but were feeling the need for caffeine before the homeward journey. That proved challenging as none of the coffee outlets in Greenwich market seemed to have any space to sit down. Dark Sugar looked like it had some good hot chocolate but it was all takeaway and Crosstown was similar. We ended up perching on a concrete step by the benches – which were all full – to drink our Crosstown coffee and eat churros. I also bought some bottles of water from a pancake stand, as nowhere else seemed to be selling them. The churros were good but it wasn’t quite the relaxing post-exhibition refuelling stop I’d imagined. We probably should have gone to the café in the Royal Naval College itself.
To avoid the steps at Cutty Sark, we opted to take the River Boat home. You can either buy tickets on the Uber app or just tap in and out like you would on the tube. For kids who are too young to have Zip cards, I imagine you would need to buy a ticket but we all just tapped. And yes, we did see the Cutty Sark properly on the way:
The boat was super quick to get back to London Bridge and, although it took us a while to find seats, we eventually managed to sit together. There was the option to buy coffee on board as well, which we probably should have done.
In case you can’t tell from the earlier photos, it was a misty old day. So misty that half of Canary Wharf just disappeared:
So sadly, we were deprived of a sunset cruise as we sped up the river. It just kinda went from misty to dark. But we did get a nice view of Tower Bridge as we disembarked.
And the City thankfully hadn’t disappeared into the mist like Canary Wharf had:
From London Bridge, we hopped a bus to Liverpool Street and home from there. Early transport issues aside, it was a pretty successful day. No one vomited and no one injured themselves. All good. I think Mars is only there for another couple of days but Helios is coming next – have a look at the Old Royal Naval College website for more details. Or just an enjoy the history of the Painted Hall and the pop culture-famous exteriors. You too can be a French revolutionary schoolboy….
