Greenwich Royal Observatory with a Guided Tour

I've recently visited the Greenwich Royal Observatory for a second time. Usually, in such museums, I pick up an audio guide, listen to everything it says and leave the premises satisfied, trusting I know the things that are worth knowing about the issue at hand. However, this time, we gave the free guided tour a chance. I am not a big fan of the guided tours, walking as a flock and not being able to see or read any piece due to the crowd. Though I am glad we took the tour this  time.

As I have already listened the audio guide in my previous visit, I had the chance to compare the guiding systems. Trust me, you don't miss anything the audio guide tells you by taking the tour. Our guide, not only gave us every detail given in the audio guide, she also told us the dirty details, the petty conflicts among the scientists, especially between John Flamsteed and Edmund Halley, and the politics related with time and longitude. She specifically spent a long time on explaining John Harrison's timekeepers by detailing the social, political and economic conditions of the era. She managed to maintain our attention on the topic at hand, by situating it within the era and combining it with interesting details beyond the scientific worth. It is a very different experience from the dry narrative given in the audio guide.

If you visit the Greenwich Royal Observatory, you are going to see the houses of the Royal Astronomers, the Octagon Room, camera obscura, the Harrison's timekeepers and some famous telescopes including Herschel's. You will learn the longitude problem and the attempts to solve it. And most certainly you will have a picture with the meridian line in the Courtyard. These are going to happen, whether you choose the audio guide, the guided tour or no guide at all.

However, if you are interested in the details such as how the architect of the Observatory was able to finish the project with a very little budget; why the budget was so little anyway; why the Octagonal Room was built wrong for its purpose and the astronomers had  to conduct their studies from a shed in the garden; what was the basis of  the conflict between Flamsteed and Halley and who was right; how did the highly educated academics of time could not set aside their pride and did not recognize Harrison's success for a long time; and for a lot more, you have got to wait for the free guided tour.