In this guide
At a glance
- Vibe
- Maritime village with a hill, a park and a world-class view
- Time needed
- A full day
- Best day
- Any day — the market now trades seven days, and weekdays are the quiet ones
- Travel zone
- 2–3
- Walkability
- 4/5
- Typical spend
- ££
Best for
Nearest stations
- Cutty SarkDLR
- GreenwichDLRNational Rail
- North GreenwichJubilee
Greenwich is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and the only part of London where the sightseeing, the park and the view all sit on top of each other. From the hill outside the Royal Observatory you look down over Christopher Wren’s Naval College, across the river to Canary Wharf, and on to the City beyond.
It also holds the line the world sets its clocks by. Greenwich Mean Time and longitude zero are both defined here.
Greenwich has its own share of the commemorative plaques marking where notable people lived or worked - see them on our interactive map.
Why visit — and who should skip it
Come here if you want a full day out of central London that still feels essential. Greenwich has the best free view in the city, a genuine village centre, a market, a park with deer, and enough maritime history to fill a day.
Skip it if you have only two or three days in London and have not yet done Westminster or the South Bank. Greenwich is 30 to 60 minutes each way, so it costs you an entire day. Save it for a longer trip — and if you do come, arrive by boat.
Top sights and activities
- Royal Observatory and the Prime Meridian — Longitude zero, the Harrison marine chronometers, and the red time ball that has dropped at 13:00 since 1833. Closed from 2 November 2026 for the First Light refurbishment; Royal Museums Greenwich says the Meridian Courtyard reopens in summer 2027, with tickets on sale in January.
- The view from Observatory Hill — Free, and the best panorama in London: the Naval College, the river, Canary Wharf and the City. Go up even though the Observatory itself is closed.
- Cutty Sark — The last surviving tea clipper, dry-docked and raised so you can walk beneath the hull.
- The Painted Hall — Thornhill’s ceiling in the Old Royal Naval College, nineteen years in the painting. Separate ticket; the chapel opposite is free.
The Painted Hall ceiling. Photo: Maciek Lulko, CC BY 2.0. 5. National Maritime Museum — Free. Nelson’s coat with the bullet hole from Trafalgar, and a good children’s gallery. 6. Greenwich Park and the deer — 183 acres, London’s oldest enclosed royal park, with a wild deer herd in The Wilderness. 7. Greenwich Market — Covered, and open daily, 10am to 5.30pm, bank holidays included. Arts, crafts, antiques and food under one roof. 8. The Greenwich Foot Tunnel — An 1902 tiled tunnel under the Thames to the Isle of Dogs. Free, open always, and the classic view back at Greenwich from the far side.
The National Maritime Museum.
Greenwich and North Greenwich Are Not the Same Place
This is the most common Greenwich mistake, so it is worth stating plainly.
| Greenwich | North Greenwich | |
|---|---|---|
| What is there | Cutty Sark, Painted Hall, park, market (the Observatory is closed from 2 November 2026) | The O2 arena, cable car, Design District |
| Station | Cutty Sark or Greenwich (DLR/Rail) | North Greenwich (Jubilee) |
| Distance apart | — | About two miles |
They are on opposite sides of the Greenwich Peninsula and are not walkable from one another in any sensible way. If you have a concert ticket, you want North Greenwich on the Jubilee line. If you want Greenwich’s sights (the Royal Observatory is closed from 2 November 2026), you want Cutty Sark on the DLR. Arriving at the wrong one costs you half an hour.
What is at North Greenwich: The O2, one of the busiest arenas in the world, with the Up at The O2 roof climb over the dome; the IFS Cloud Cable Car across the river to the Royal Docks, where contactless is accepted and the crossing counts as a TfL journey; and the Design District, a cluster of small studios and a good canteen.
The Greenwich Foot Tunnel’s southern rotunda.
Key streets and micro-districts
Maritime Greenwich
The UNESCO core, and four separate sites within five minutes of each other — which makes knowing what is free and what is not the most useful thing here.
Free: the National Maritime Museum, the largest maritime museum in the world, with a sea-themed playground and a good family offer; and the Queen’s House, an Inigo Jones villa holding the art collection, with the Tulip Stairs — the first geometric self-supporting staircase in Britain — costing nothing to walk up.
Paid: the Cutty Sark, £22 adult and £11 child, open daily 10am–5pm with last entry 4.15pm, where the money buys you the space underneath the hull as much as the decks. And the Old Royal Naval College’s Painted Hall, Thornhill’s ceiling, which took him nineteen years.
At Christmas an ice rink goes up beside the Queen’s House, 18 November 2026 to 3 January 2027; prices and the kids-skate-free Tuesdays are in our London ice skating guide.
The order that works is the free museums first while you are fresh, then one paid site rather than both — most people run out of appetite before they run out of Greenwich.
The colonnade beside the Queen’s House.
Greenwich town centre
A compact grid around the covered market, and the part that still feels like a town, not a visitor attraction.
Greenwich Market is the anchor — under a roof, so it works in the rain, and unusual in that it mixes antiques, crafts and makers with food rather than being one or the other. It is open daily, 10am to 5.30pm. Goddards at Greenwich has been selling pie and mash here since 1890, which is the most Greenwich lunch available. There is also a street food market by the Cutty Sark.
Around it, Church Street, Nelson Road and College Approach hold the second-hand bookshops, a printmakers’ gallery, a guitar shop and several good pubs — including The Admiral Hardy on the market itself.
Come on a weekday if you want to browse. It trades seven days now, but weekends are shoulder-to-shoulder, and the antiques stalls are the ones that suffer for it.
In November a lantern parade from the Old Royal Naval College switches on the market’s Christmas lights; the date and the market’s festive hours are in our London Christmas markets guide.
Greenwich Park and the hill
The oldest enclosed royal park in London, and the climb behind the Maritime Museum is steeper than it looks from the bottom — allow ten minutes and take the path, not the grass in wet weather.
Come for the view from the top, which is free. Queen’s House and the Naval College below, the river, Canary Wharf opposite and the O2 to the right — one of the great London views, at no cost, whether or not you go into anything.
The Royal Observatory at the summit is closed from 2 November 2026 for the First Light refurbishment, which Royal Museums Greenwich says is due to finish by spring 2028. Royal Museums Greenwich says the Meridian Courtyard reopens in summer 2027, with tickets on sale in January (Royal Museums Greenwich). Until then the free view from the hill, the National Maritime Museum and the Cutty Sark fill the day. Until 2 November it is £24 adult, £18 student, £12 child, 10am–5pm with last entry 4pm, and buys the Prime Meridian line, Wren’s Octagon Room and the Great Equatorial Telescope.
The Peter Harrison Planetarium is closed for renovation, so do not plan a show into the day. Royal Museums Greenwich runs a replacement 30-minute show, presented live by its astronomers, downstairs at the National Maritime Museum as part of Astronomers Take Over: £18 adult and £16 child with the planetarium, £8 without. Science events in London covers that and the rest of the city’s dated science programme.
Also free, and often missed: the deer in The Wilderness — a herd has been here since the seventeenth century — and the rose garden behind Ranger’s House, at its best in June. English Heritage’s own site now calls Ranger’s House the exterior of the Bridgerton family home; see our Bridgerton in London guide for opening dates.
The view from Greenwich Park.
The riverside and the Foot Tunnel
The Greenwich Foot Tunnel is free, open at all hours, and the entrance is right at the pier beside the Cutty Sark — a glazed rotunda you would walk past without noticing. Opened in 1902 so that south London dockworkers could reach the Isle of Dogs, it is white tile under the river, and it comes up at Island Gardens for the view back at Greenwich that Canaletto painted. The refurbishment left four new lifts that the council says run 24 hours a day, and it publishes a live status page for both ends — worth a look before you rely on them. Walk your bike through rather than riding, and note that e-bikes are barred altogether.
The full walking route from Canary Wharf, stop by stop → — eleven stops, with the tunnel in the middle.
Head east along the river instead and you pass the Naval College to the Trafalgar Tavern, an 1837 riverside pub where Dickens set the wedding breakfast in Our Mutual Friend — in the Hawke Room, which you can still eat in. Order the whitebait, historically and still.
Going by boat is better than the DLR. Uber Boat by Thames Clippers runs from Greenwich Pier into central London, takes about 25 minutes to Tower Bridge, and is the only commute in the city people photograph.
The Trafalgar Tavern.
Inside the Foot Tunnel.
Greenwich Peninsula and North Greenwich
Two miles north, and a different world from the Maritime Greenwich end of the peninsula — modern, arena-scale, and built around The O2, not around history. Match-day and event-night transport are in our O2 travel guide. The Thames Clippers pier here is the fastest way in on an event night.
The O2 from across the river at dusk.
The O2 is not just the arena. Wrapped around the dome is Outlet Shopping at The O2 — over 60 discount and outlet stores (adidas, Nike, Calvin Klein, Tommy Hilfiger, Guess, Next and others), open the same hours as the rest of the complex. Alongside it: more than 30 bars and restaurants, a Cineworld cinema, bowling, and a trampoline park, on top of the Up at The O2 roof climb and whatever is playing in the arena itself. It works as a destination on a day with no concert ticket at all.
The IFS Cloud Cable Car.
The Design District sits opposite the arena, a minute from North Greenwich station — 16 low-rise buildings by eight different architects, holding small design studios, workspaces and a straightforward canteen. Worth a look if The O2 itself feels too retail-heavy.
Where to eat and drink
| Spot | Style | Price | Why go |
|---|---|---|---|
| Greenwich Market | Food stalls | £ | Covered, and the easiest lunch in the area |
| The Trafalgar Tavern | Historic riverside pub | ££ | Regency pub on the Thames, associated with Dickens |
| The Gipsy Moth | Pub with garden | ££ | Beside the Cutty Sark, with a large beer garden |
| Goddards at Greenwich | Pie and mash | £ | Serving since 1890; the traditional London plate |
| The Old Brewery | Brewery and dining | ££ | In the Naval College grounds |
| Design District Canteen | Food hall | £ | At North Greenwich, and useful before an O2 event |
Greenwich Market, under its Victorian roof.
See all 12 places to eat and drink in Greenwich
Getting there
By river. The best way. Uber Boat by Thames Clippers runs from Westminster, Embankment, Bankside, Tower and Canary Wharf to Greenwich Pier. Thirty to sixty minutes depending on the start point. Oyster and contactless work, but river fares sit outside the daily cap — see the river boats guide. Bought ahead, an Uber Boat single river ticket is from £9.80 on GetYourGuide, for one trip from any central pier. For a boat with commentary, City Cruises’ one-day unlimited river pass is from £9 for as many trips as you like between Westminster, London Eye, Tower and Greenwich piers, and the one-way Westminster to Greenwich cruises are from £14.62; see our Thames river cruises guide.
By DLR. Cutty Sark station is the one you want — it is in the middle of the town centre. Greenwich station is a little further out.
For the O2. North Greenwich on the Jubilee line, not Greenwich. 10 to 12 minutes from Waterloo.
On foot. Through the Greenwich Foot Tunnel to Island Gardens and the DLR for Canary Wharf.
How long to spend, and when to go
| If you have | Do this |
|---|---|
| Half a day | Cutty Sark, the market, and the free view from Observatory Hill |
| A full day | Add the Painted Hall and the Maritime Museum (the Royal Observatory is closed from 2 November 2026) |
| A full day plus | Add the cable car from North Greenwich, or the Foot Tunnel walk |
Best time: Arrive by boat in the morning and walk up the hill before the coach parties. The hill view is best in afternoon light looking back towards the City.
Note: The Observatory, Cutty Sark and Painted Hall are three separate tickets from two separate organisations. Until the Observatory closes on 2 November 2026, Royal Museums Greenwich sells a day pass covering it and the Cutty Sark for £38 adult and £19 child; the Painted Hall belongs to the Old Royal Naval College and is bought separately.
Map of Greenwich
Open the map36 places: 12 places to eat · 15 things to do · 5 hidden spots · 4 places to stay
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Eat & drinkThings to doHidden LondonStay
What's on in Greenwich
Limited runs and the annual fixtures. Anything already finished is removed automatically.Links marked ad are affiliate links. If you book through one we may earn a commission, at no extra cost to you. It never affects what goes on this list.
Secret Cinema Presents Pirates of the Caribbean
Not open yetSecret Cinema's format: a full set built around the film, actors in it, and you in costume before the screening starts.
16 February to 25 April 2027 - the furthest ahead on this list. Costume is expected rather than optional.
Jack in the Green, Deptford
Not open yetFowlers Troop parade one of the tallest Jack in the Green figures in the country through streets no tourist visits, reviving a pagan May tradition that died out in Victorian London. No tickets, no marketing - you find it by knowing it exists.
Route and timing vary year to year and publish quietly. Deptford High Street mid-morning on the day is the safe bet.
The London Marathon
Not open yetFree to watch and one of the great days in the London calendar - the start is on Blackheath, and the course runs through Greenwich, Tower Bridge and Canary Wharf to The Mall.
FREE TO WATCH but it closes a great many roads and the DLR and Jubilee line are packed all morning. Greenwich around the 10km mark is one of the best and loudest stretches.
Greenwich Fair
Not open yetTwo free afternoons of street theatre, circus, puppetry and acrobatics at the top of Greenwich Park - the closing weekend of GDIF, and small enough to still feel like a local fete rather than a festival.
No booking - just turn up. A level access route runs from the Blackheath Gate (about 15 minutes); the step-free route from St Mary's Gate is uphill and takes 10-15 minutes.
Coming up near Greenwich
Gigs, shows and exhibitions in the next fortnight at venues closest toCutty Sark, Greenwich, North Greenwich. See everything on the What's On page.
Thursday22 October
-
19:00THE BLACKOUT - 22 OCTOBER
Up the Creek · Cutty Sark (for Maritime Greenwich) Zone 2+3
Friday23 October
-
09:30Tiny Tides Peninsula — Under-5 Social Club
Firepit Art Gallery · North Greenwich Zone 2/3
Free Venue site -
18:00AIR.wav
Firepit Art Gallery · North Greenwich Zone 2/3
Free Venue site -
18:00Peninsula Games Night — at Caspino
Firepit Art Gallery · North Greenwich Zone 2/3
Free Venue site -
18:00Professor Brian Cox
The O2 · North Greenwich Zone 2/3
-
18:00Professor Brian Cox: Emergence World Tour
The O2 · North Greenwich Zone 2/3
-
18:00THE FRIDAY NIGHT SHOW!
Up the Creek · Cutty Sark (for Maritime Greenwich) Zone 2+3
-
18:00Verka Serduchka
The O2 · North Greenwich Zone 2/3
Saturday24 October
-
18:00SATURDAY NIGHT COMEDY - UP THE CREEK
Up the Creek · Cutty Sark (for Maritime Greenwich) Zone 2+3
Friday30 October
-
19:30Mavo
Indigo at The O2 · North Greenwich Zone 2/3
Things to do in Greenwich
Beyond eating and drinking. Free things are listed first.Links marked ad are affiliate links. If you book through one we may earn a commission, at no extra cost to you. It never affects what goes on this list.
Greenwich Foot Tunnel
FreeWalk under the Thames through a tiled Victorian tunnel and come up on the Isle of Dogs with the whole Greenwich waterfront laid out behind you.
Free, open 24 hours, and step-free by lift - though the lifts do fail and the stairs are a long spiral. The view back from Island Gardens is the real reward.
Greenwich Market
FreeTrading since 1737 and the only London market inside a World Heritage site - designer-makers, antiques and a strong street food run under one roof.
Covered, so it works in rain when the rest of Greenwich does not. Different traders on different days: antiques and collectables do not run every day.
Greenwich Park
Free183 acres holding a deer enclosure, a boating pond, a rose garden and London's longest herbaceous border, with the best free view in south London at the top.
Free and open daily. The hill is steep - the path up from the Maritime Museum side is the gentlest way to the Observatory.
Greenwich Peninsula Ecology Park
FreeFour acres of wetland, marsh and woodland hidden behind the Peninsula's towers, with hides, a lake and a genuinely surprising amount of birdlife.
Free, and closed on Mondays and Tuesdays - the single most common reason people find the gate shut. Step-free boardwalks throughout.
National Maritime Museum
FreeFree, enormous, and holds Nelson's Trafalgar coat with the bullet hole still in the shoulder.
Permanent galleries are free; the temporary exhibitions are ticketed. The children's galleries are among the best free ones in London.
Old Royal Naval College
FreeChristopher Wren's riverside campus, and the Painted Hall - forty thousand square feet of baroque ceiling that took James Thornhill nineteen years and is often called Britain's Sistine Chapel.
The grounds and chapel are free to walk into; only the Painted Hall is ticketed, and children go free with a paying adult. First Sundays run reduced-price tickets. It doubles constantly as a film location - Les Miserables, The Crown, Thor.
Peninsula Al Fresco
FreeSummer onlyChurros, fried chicken, pizza and a spritz bar under pergolas outside the O2 - free giant Jenga and Connect Four keep it family-friendly rather than purely a food market.
Summer only: the 2026 season ran 11 July to 31 August, Monday to Friday 12-9pm, Saturday 11am-9pm and Sunday 12-9pm.
The Painted Hall
FreeForty thousand square feet of baroque painting that took James Thornhill nineteen years, restored to the point where you are handed a mirror to look up without breaking your neck.
NOT free, whatever the listicles say - about £19, though under-16s go free and First Sundays are £5. The ticket converts to an annual pass at no extra cost.
CrazyPutt Adventure Golf
Eighteen holes done in deliberately old-fashioned 1980s crazy golf style, with holes modelled on the Belfry, Wentworth, Augusta and St Andrews.
Outdoor and a few hundred metres from North Greenwich station. The opposite of the polished bar-and-golf venues in the centre, and cheaper for it.
Cutty Sark
The last surviving tea clipper, raised three metres so you can stand underneath the hull and look up at the lines that made her the fastest ship of her day.
The under-hull space is free to walk through as a cafe - you do not need a ticket for that part, which almost nobody realises.
IFS Cloud Cable Car
The only cable car crossing of the Thames, running from the Peninsula to the Royal Docks at a height that puts Canary Wharf below eye level.
Takes contactless and is cheaper with an Oyster. Closes in high wind, so it is not something to build a plan around.
Peter Harrison Planetarium
The only planetarium in London, in a tilted bronze cone on the Observatory site, with shows narrated live by an astronomer rather than pre-recorded.
Closed since 8 September 2025 for the First Light project. Astronomers Take Over at the National Maritime Museum has a live planetarium show meanwhile.
Royal Observatory Greenwich
Longitude zero, Harrison's sea clocks, and the courtyard line where the eastern and western hemispheres meet - the reason the world's clocks are set the way they are.
The Observatory is closed from 2 November 2026 for refurbishment; Royal Museums Greenwich says the Meridian Courtyard reopens in summer 2027. The view back over the Old Royal Naval College to Canary Wharf is free and does not need a ticket.
The O2 Arena
The busiest music arena in the world by ticket sales, inside the Millennium Dome - and the reason most visitors ever go to North Greenwich.
Jubilee line to North Greenwich, and the queue to leave afterwards is genuinely long - the IFS Cloud cable car and the Thames Clipper are both slower but far more pleasant escapes. Up at The O2 climbs the roof of the same building by day.
TOCA Social
Private booths where a screen and a ball-feeder turn football into a target game - it works whether or not anyone in the group can actually play.
Booked by the box rather than per person, so a small group pays the same as a large one. Under-18s must be out by early evening on most nights.
Up at The O2
16+A harnessed walk over the tented roof of The O2 to a viewing platform 52 metres up, looking back along the river to Canary Wharf and the City.
Minimum age and a minimum height apply and it is not step-free. Sunset slots cost more and sell out first. Runs in rain, cancels in high wind.
Book IFS Cloud Cable Carad
Hidden Greenwich
Free, self-guided and easy to walk past without knowing it's there.
28 Weeks Later's Greenwich Foot Tunnel
Filming location28 Weeks Later (2007) - a chase sequence beneath the Thames
The Victorian pedestrian tunnel under the Thames, already an atmospheric spot in its own right, gets used for a tense sequence in the sequel - worth combining with a normal Greenwich-to-Island Gardens walk under the river.
Free and open 24 hours (lifts have restricted hours) - a genuine way to cross the river on foot, film connection aside.
Bridgerton House (Ranger's House)
Filming locationBridgerton (2020-) - the Bridgerton family home exterior
An ivy-covered Georgian villa on the edge of Greenwich Park doubles as the Bridgerton family's London home - genuinely one of the prettiest house exteriors in Greenwich even without the show.
An English Heritage property with its own paid entry and opening hours (it also houses the Wernher art collection) - check before visiting.
Cecil Day-Lewis's Greenwich Home
Blue plaqueCecil Day-Lewis (1904–1972), Poet Laureate
Day-Lewis lived here as Poet Laureate - Crooms Hill is one of Greenwich's prettiest streets, running alongside the park.
A private residential building - viewable from the street only.
Maryon Park
Filming locationBlowup (1966) - the photographs, and the body in the undergrowth
The park where Antonioni's photographer shoots a couple and then, blowing up the negatives, finds what might be a corpse in the bushes. The tennis courts where the film ends with a mimed game are still there.
Free, open dawn to dusk, and genuinely quiet. Charlton station, five minutes. It is a proper park rather than a location - most people here are walking a dog.
The Crown's Buckingham Palace (Old Royal Naval College)
Filming locationThe Crown (2016-2023) - the Buckingham Palace exterior and courtyard
Wren's naval college stands in for Buckingham Palace throughout the series - the real palace does not allow filming, so the courtyard scenes you remember were shot in Greenwich. The same colonnades appear in Les Miserables, Thor and The Dark Knight Rises.
The grounds are free and open daily; the Painted Hall and Chapel are ticketed separately. Already the most-filmed building in London, so expect to recognise it from several things at once.
The Dark Knight Rises's Italian Cafe (Old Royal Naval College)
Filming locationThe Dark Knight Rises (2012) - Alfred spots Bruce and Selina
The riverside colonnades here stood in for a Florence street cafe in the film's final scene - a different Greenwich landmark angle from the Bridgerton connection already on this site.
Free grounds, open daily; the buildings themselves have their own separate opening hours and some charge for entry.
The Old Royal Naval College
Filming locationThor: The Dark World (2013) - the Greenwich finale
Thor and Malekith fight through the colonnades in the film's climax, and Greenwich plays itself rather than standing in for anywhere. Wren's buildings have doubled for Paris, St Petersburg and Gotham in other productions.
The grounds are free and open daily. The Painted Hall is ticketed and worth it on its own terms.
Where to stay
A base for a trip where the park and the river count for more than being in the West End every evening.
- Greenwich town centre — Rooms above pubs by the market, and chain hotels and apartments along Greenwich High Road. Cutty Sark DLR is in the middle; Greenwich station, with trains to London Bridge in about ten minutes, is at the west end.
- Blackheath — A village on the heath beyond the park, with its own station and trains to London Bridge and Charing Cross. The hill and the Observatory (closed from 2 November 2026) are about 20 minutes’ walk across the heath.
- Deptford Bridge — West of Greenwich station on the DLR, 15 to 20 minutes’ walk from the Cutty Sark.
- North Greenwich — The peninsula by the O2, on the Jubilee line, 10 to 12 minutes from Waterloo, and a bus ride from the sights.
- Canary Wharf — Across the river, ten minutes from Cutty Sark on the DLR, with the Elizabeth line to Liverpool Street in seven.
Where to stay in Greenwich → compares the hotels in each part, which station each is nearest, and the night buses home once the DLR has stopped.
Cheapest first. Prices are a typical starting rate per night, not a quote.Links marked ad are affiliate links. If you book through one we may earn a commission, at no extra cost to you. It never affects what goes on this list.
Holiday Inn Express London Greenwich Peninsula
££HotelBreakfast includedAccessible roomsThe cheap bed within walking distance of the O2, with breakfast in the rate - which the arena hotels charge extra for.
About a 15 minute walk to the O2 and North Greenwich station. Reprices on arena nights like everything else on the peninsula.
Staycity Aparthotels London Greenwich High Road
££AparthotelAccessible roomsA minute from Greenwich rail and DLR, and about eight from the Cutty Sark, the market and the park gates - a kitchen within walking distance of the Observatory.
Greenwich prices rather than Zone 1 ones, and the trains reach London Bridge in eight minutes.
Zedwell Greenwich
££HotelAccessible roomsThe same soundproofed windowless format as the Piccadilly flagship, at Greenwich prices and within reach of the Cutty Sark and the Observatory.
The steadiest price of any Zedwell hotel: it swings about 2.2x between the quietest and busiest nights against 3x at Piccadilly, and a February midweek came in cheaper than an October Sunday. A Cocoon 4 sleeping four starts at £117, but it is two double beds in a bunk, so it suits two couples rather than four friends. Private room, own door, en-suite, no window. Early check-in is £25 here against £60 in the West End.
DoubleTree by Hilton London Greenwich
£££HotelAccessible roomsA fifteen-minute walk from the Cutty Sark, the Old Royal Naval College and the National Maritime Museum, unlike the Peninsula hotels which are a DLR ride from all three.
In the historic World Heritage part of Greenwich rather than on the Peninsula - the better choice for anyone whose trip is about the Observatory and the market, not the O2.
InterContinental London - The O2
££££HotelAccessible roomsA glass tower on the river with a spa and pool looking straight across to Canary Wharf, attached to The O2 for anyone catching a show there.
On the Peninsula rather than in Greenwich town - a DLR or riverboat ride from the Cutty Sark and the Observatory, not a walk.
Make a day of it
Combine Greenwich with
Walking times are from the centre of Greenwich. Each of these works as an afternoon once you have finished here.
Canary Wharf
20 min walkNorth by DLR, or on foot through the Greenwich Foot Tunnel under the river.
The City of London
25 min walkBy DLR to Bank, or far better by river boat to Tower Pier.
South Bank
45 min walkBy Uber Boat along the river — the best way to arrive anywhere in London.
Shoreditch
35 min walkNorth by DLR and Overground for markets and evening bars.
Walking routes
A Walk from Canary Wharf to Greenwich: Under the River in Eleven Stops →
Our full route into this area from the north: eleven numbered stops over about 6.5km and three to four hours, with a map, a Google Maps walking link for your phone and what is open on which day. It starts at Canary Wharf’s free roof garden, comes down the Isle of Dogs past Mudchute Farm, crosses under the Thames through the Greenwich Foot Tunnel at stop six, and finishes on Greenwich hill — so it arrives at the Naval College out of a Victorian tunnel, not off a train. It also carries the live foot-tunnel lift status, which is the fact that decides whether the crossing is step-free on the day you go.
The short version, if you are already in Greenwich
- Arrive: By Uber Boat to Greenwich Pier.
- Cutty Sark: Walk under the hull, then into the covered Greenwich Market.
- Naval College: The Painted Hall, and the free chapel opposite.
- Maritime Museum: Free, and a good hour.
- Up the hill: Through Greenwich Park to the view (the Royal Observatory is closed from 2 November 2026).
- Finish: The Trafalgar Tavern on the river, or the Foot Tunnel for the view back.
Common mistakes to avoid
- Going to North Greenwich for the Cutty Sark and the park. Two miles and a different Tube line. Cutty Sark on the DLR is the one you want.
- Taking the Tube when you could take the boat. The river journey is the best part of the day.
- Paying for a view. The famous panorama from the hill is free.
- Underestimating the hill. It is a genuine climb from the Maritime Museum. There is a gentler path from Blackheath Gate.
- Buying the Observatory and the Cutty Sark separately before 2 November 2026. A Royal Museums Greenwich day pass covers both for £38 adult and £19 child. The Maritime Museum and Queen’s House are free anyway.
- Avoiding a Monday for the market. You no longer need to. It trades seven days, 10am to 5.30pm, and Monday is one of the quietest.
Common questions
Are Greenwich and North Greenwich the same place?
No, and this catches people out constantly. Greenwich is the historic maritime town — the Observatory, Cutty Sark, the park and the market, served by DLR and National Rail. North Greenwich is on the Greenwich Peninsula about two miles north, and is essentially the O2 arena and the cable car, served by the Jubilee line. If you are going to a concert you want North Greenwich; for everything else you want Greenwich or Cutty Sark station.
Do you have to pay to stand on the Prime Meridian?
The marked meridian line is in the Royal Observatory courtyard, inside the ticketed area, and the whole Royal Observatory is closed from 2 November 2026 for the First Light refurbishment. Royal Museums Greenwich says the Meridian Courtyard reopens in summer 2027, with tickets on sale in January. The view from the hill outside the Observatory is free and is the famous one.
Is the Painted Hall worth the ticket?
Yes. It took James Thornhill nineteen years to paint and is often called the UK's Sistine Chapel. It sits in the Old Royal Naval College, separate from the Observatory, with its own ticket. The adjacent chapel is free.
What is the best way to get to Greenwich?
By river. Uber Boat by Thames Clippers runs from Westminster, Embankment, Bankside and Tower piers and takes 30 to 60 minutes depending on where you start. It costs more than the DLR but is a far better journey. Oyster and contactless are accepted, though river fares are separate from the daily cap.
What days is Greenwich Market open?
Every day. The market's own guidance is 10am to 5.30pm daily, including weekends and bank holidays, with the only closures being Christmas Day and the first six Mondays of the year, when traders take a break after the Christmas rush. It is a five-minute walk from Cutty Sark DLR station.
