Prime Meridian

Standing on the line where Greenwich Mean Time was born feels oddly anticlimactic at first. You're looking at a brass strip embedded in tarmac, straddled by two hemispheres, with tourists queuing to straddle it for photos. And yet there's something genuinely thrilling about knowing this unremarkable spot is where the world agrees time begins.

The Prime Meridian sits within Greenwich, the historic riverside district in southeast London. The Royal Observatory overlooks it from the hill above - that's where the real history lives, but this line itself is the thing. You can stand with one foot in the eastern hemisphere, one in the western, and feel like you've actually done something geographical. Proper satisfying, that.

Allow twenty minutes here, maybe thirty if you're the type to take a dozen photos at different angles. It's free. Best time is early morning or late afternoon when the tour buses have moved on - midday can be rammed with school groups and cruise passengers. Winter's quieter and actually quite atmospheric, all grey Thames and empty pathways.

If you're staying at Abbey Wood Experience Freedom Glamping just five miles north, the Meridian makes an easy half-day loop with Greenwich Park and the Observatory itself. The park's sprawling and genuinely lovely for a walk. Don't expect the Meridian alone to hold you for long though - it's the history of the location that matters, not the line itself. Go for the context, stay for Greenwich.