Introduction

London is a widely distributed mixture of the Third and First Worlds, of chauffeurs and mendicants, of the constitution, the professedly on the job category and the daring. Unlike comparable European metropoliss, much of London expressions unplanned and Myxocephalus aenaeus, but that is portion of its entreaty. Visiting London is like being allow free on a giant-sized Monopoly board clogged with traffic. Even though you likely wo n’t cognize where you are precisely, the names will at least expression reassuringly familiar. The metropolis is so tremendous, visitants will necessitate to do maximal usage of the belowground train system: unluckily, this dislocates the metropolis ‘s geographics and makes it difficult to acquire your bearings. Making some traveling by coach helps suit the metropolis together.

Orientation

The chief geographical characteristic of the metropolis is the River Thames, which meanders through cardinal London, spliting it into northern and southern halves. The cardinal country and the most of import sights, theaters and eating houses are within the Underground ‘s Circle Line on the north bank of the river. The voguish and tourist-ridden West End lies within the western part of the cringle, and includes Soho, Trafalgar Square, Piccadilly Circus, Leicester Square and Regent St. The East End, so beloved of Ealing comedies, lies E of the Circle Line ; it used to be the sole preserve of the Cockney but is now a cultural thaw pot. There are interesting inner-city suburbs in North London, including Islington and Camden Town. South London includes a muss of hapless, soiled, graffiti-ridden suburbs, like Brixton, which have vivacious subcultures of their ain.

Adjustment in London is laughably expensive and in short supply in July and August. There ‘s the usual mix of inns, university colleges, B & A ; Bs and hotels. Earl ‘s Court is a major Centre for inexpensive inns and hotels, but there are other good Centres in Bloomsbury and Notting Hill. Less-cheap options are Paddington, Bayswater and Pimlico. Eating out is besides expensive, though Indian, Chinese and Italian eating houses are less endangering to your billfold. Culinary hunting evidences are Covent Garden, Soho and North of Leicester Square.

Geting around

Heathrow airdrome is accessible by coach, London Underground ( Piccadilly line ) and the Heathrow Express, which makes the journey from Paddington Station to Terminals 1-3 in 15 proceedingss and to Terminal 4 in 20. A cab to or from the airdrome will be around US $ 35 to US $ 50. The Gatwick Express runs between Gatwick airdrome and Victoria station in 30 proceedingss, or you can acquire a cab for around US $ 60. The Stansted Express will acquire you to Stansted airdrome from Liverpool Street station in 60 proceedingss or you can acquire a cab for US $ 100 ( as if! ) .

London ‘s tubing is legendary, but chiefly because it ‘s non that much merriment to utilize. Although the tubing web is huge, coachs are more pleasant and interesting, every bit long as the traffic ‘s non gridlocked. Travelcards can be used on all signifiers of conveyance. Several rail companies now run rider trains in London, most of which interchange with the tubing.

London ‘s celebrated black cabs are first-class but expensive. Minicabs are inexpensive rivals, with free-lance drivers, but you ca n’t flag these down on the street. If you ‘d instead drive yourself, you ‘re in for a parking incubus – it ‘s about impossible to acquire a park in the metropolis Centre, and the penalties for parking illicitly are barbarous and unusual so.

History

Although a Celtic community settled around a Ford across the River Thames, it was the Romans who foremost developed the square stat mi now known as the City of London. They built a span and an impressive metropolis wall, and made Londinium an of import port and the hub of their route system. The Romans left, but trade went on. Few hints of London dating from the Dark Ages can now be found, but the metropolis survived the incursions of both the Saxons and Vikings. Fifty old ages before the Normans arrived, Edward the Confessor built his abbey and castle at Westminster.

William the Conqueror found a metropolis that was, without uncertainty, the richest and largest in the land. He raised the White Tower ( portion of the Tower of London ) and confirmed the metropolis ‘s independency and right to self-government.

During the reign of Elizabeth I the capital began to spread out quickly – in 40 old ages the population doubled to make 200,000. Unfortunately, mediaeval Tudor and Jacobean London was virtually destroyed by the Great Fire of 1666. The fire gave Christopher Wren the chance to construct his celebrated churches, but did nil to hold the metropolis ‘s growing.

By 1720 there were 750,000 people, and London, as the place of Parliament and focal point for a turning imperium, was going of all time richer and more of import. Georgian designers replaced the last of mediaeval London with their baronial symmetrical architecture and residential squares.

The population exploded once more in the nineteenth century, making a huge sweep of Victorian suburbs. As a consequence of the Industrial Revolution and quickly spread outing commercialism, it jumped from 2.7 million in 1851 to 6.6 million in 1901.

Georgian and Victorian London was devastated by the Luftwaffe in WWII – immense wrappings of the Centre and the East End were wholly flattened. After the war, ugly lodging and low-priced developments were thrown up on the bomb sites. The docks ne’er recovered – transportation moved to Tilbury, and the Docklands declined to the point of delinquency. In the judicious 1980s, that decennary of Thatcherite assurance and deregulating, the Docklands were rediscovered by a new moving ridge of belongings developers, who proved to be merely marginally more discriminating than the Luftwaffe.

London briefly regained its ‘cool ‘ repute in the 1990s, buoyed by Tony Blair ‘s New Labour, a rampaging lb and a swag of dad, manner and media ‘names ‘ . Blair ‘s blane Ken Livingstone donned the mayoral robes in May 2000, opposing programs to sell off the tubing and forcing for improved public conveyance and safety. The face of the metropolis changed with the building of the & # 163 ; 1bn white elephant Millennium Dome, the London Eye observation wheel, the Tate Modern ( linked by the when-will-it-ever-open Millennium Bridge ) and the creative activity of the British Museum ‘s Great Court. But some things ne’er change: London ‘s cost of life outdoes itself twelvemonth after twelvemonth, its smart quotient continues to surge and the spread between the rich persons and have nots looms of all time larger.

What is in London?

Trafalgar Square

It ‘s the bosom of visitants ‘ London, crushing with tour coachs, cameras and flocks of relentless pigeons. On the square ‘s northern border is the cash-strapped National Gallery, which has one of the universe ‘s most impressive art aggregations. Celebrated pictures include C & # 233 ; zanne ‘s The Bathers and van Eyck ‘s Arnolfini Wedding. Entry to the gallery is free, which means if you feel like dropping in and looking at merely one or two images, you can make so at your leisure without experiencing obliged to cover extended district.

Besides in the locality are the National Portrait Gallery, a topographic point to see tonss of faces from the Middle Ages to modern times, and St Martin in the William claude dukenfields, with an bordering trade market and a brass-rubbing Centre in the crypt.

Westminster Abbey

The resting topographic point of the royals, Westminster Abbey is one of the most visited churches in the Christian universe. It ‘s a beautiful edifice, full of dark graves and memorials, with an acoustic field that will direct trembles down your spinal column when the choirboys clear their pharynxs. The axial rotation call of the dead and honoured is guaranteed to humble the greatest egotist, despite the weighty and ornate memorabilia. In September 1997, 1000000s of people round the universe saw the interior of the Abbey when Television crews covered Princess Di ‘s funeral service. Since so the figure of visitants has increased by 300 % , and the visit is now more restricted, with some countries cordoned off.

Houses of Parliament

The amazing neo-Gothic glare of the Houses of Parliament has been restored thanks to a recent spring clean of the frontage. The edifice includes the House of Commons and the House of Lords, so the magnificence of the outside is let down merely by the degree of argument in the inside ( ‘hear, hear ‘ ) . There ‘s restricted entree to the Chamberss when they ‘re in session, but a visit around 6pm will avoid the worst of the crowds. Check the clip on the most recognizable face in the Houses of Parliament, Big Ben.

Nearby, Toss offing St, the official abode of the premier curate ( no 10 ) and the Chancellor of the Exchequer of the treasury ( no 11 ) , has been guarded by an imposing Fe gate since the security forces realised that the lone iconic bobby outside Maggie ‘s door was non sufficient to halt the IRA howitzer bomb onslaught in 1989.

Tate Britain

The Tate Britain is the keeper of an impressive historical archive of British art. Built in 1897, the Tate is presently undergoing an ambitious programme of enlargement. When all is complete, there will be six new galleries for impermanent exhibition and nine new or refurbished 1s for the Tate ‘s lasting aggregation of peerless Blakes, Reynolds, Gainsboroughs, Hogarths, Constables,

Nat turners and Pre-raphaelite beauties.

Its sister gallery, the brand-spanking new Tate Modern, is housed in the former Bankside Power Station. The Tate Modern displays the Tate ‘s aggregation of international modern art, including major plants by Bacon, Dal & # 237 ; , Picasso, Matisse, Rothko and Warhol, every bit good as work by more modern-day creative persons. The edifice is every bit exciting as the art: gorgeous weapons-grade ruddy brick with a 325ft-high ( 99m-high ) chimney. The former turbine hall, below street degree and running the length of the huge edifice, now forms the amazing entryway to the gallery.

Buckingham Palace

The Queen opened Buckingham Palace to the populace for the first clip in 1993 to raise money for fixs to Windsor Castle. The insides range from kitsch to tasteless luxury and uncover nil of the domestic life of the Royal Family apart from a gammy oculus when it comes to interior decor. The changing of the guard is a London ‘must see ‘ – though you ‘ll likely travel away inquiring what all the dither was approximately.

Not far off and decidedly worth a amble is St James ‘s Park, which is the neatest and most royal of London ‘s royal Parkss. St James ‘s Palace is the lone lasting portion of a edifice initiated by the palace-mad Henry VIII in 1530. Merely near the park ‘s northern border is the Institute for Contemporary Art, a great topographic point to loosen up, hang out and see some cutting-edge movie, dance, picture taking, theater and art.

Covent Garden

Once a vegetable field attached to Westminster Abbey, Covent Garden became the low-life hangout of Pepys, Fielding and Boswell, so a major fruit and veg market, and is now a victory of preservation and commercialism. The car-free plaza is surrounded by interior decorator gift and apparels stores, hip bars and eating houses. Stables selling overpriced old-timers and bric-a-brac portion the arcaded plaza with street theaters, buskers and people-watchers.

British Museum

The most trafficked attractive force in Bloomsbury, and in the entireness of London, is without a uncertainty the British Museum. It is the oldest, most grand museum in the universe, and has late received a well-earned rejig with Norman Foster ‘s glass-roofed Great Court. The museum is so large and so full of ‘stuff ‘ collected ( read: stolen? ) by Victorian travelers and adventurers that visitants frequently make the error of o.d.ing on the antiquities. See every bit much as you want to see, non every bit much as you believe you should. Foreground include the eldritch Assyrian hoarded wealths and Egyptian mas ; the keen pre-Christian Portland Vase and the 2000-year-old cadaver found in a Cheshire bog. With the remotion of the British Library to St Pancras, the Reading Room is now unfastened to the populace, unhappily doing Reader ‘s tickets a thing of the yesteryear.

Bloomsbury is a curious mix of the University of London, beautiful Georgian squares and architecture, literary history, traffic, office workers, pupils and tourers. Its focal point, Russell Square, is London ‘s largest square.

St Paul ‘s Cathedral

Half the universe saw the interior of St Paul ‘s Cathedral when Charles and Di tied the knot here in 1981. The venerable edifice was constructed by Christopher Wren between 1675 and 1710, but it stands on the site of two old cathedrals dating back to 604. Its celebrated dome, the biggest in the universe after St Peter ‘s in Rome, no longer dominates London as it did for centuries, but it ‘s still rather a sight when viewed from the river. Visitors should speak low and sweetly near the rustle gallery, which reputedly carries words spoken near to its walls to the other side of the dome.

Victoria & A ; Albert Museum

The Victoria & A ; Albert Museum, on Cromwell Rd in South Kensington, has an eclectic mix of loot gathered together under its brief as a museum of cosmetic art and design. It sometimes feels like an tremendous Victorian debris store, with about four million artifacts on show. It ‘s best to shop through the aggregation fancifully, look intoing out the Chinese ceramics, Nipponese blades, sketchs by Raphael, sculpture by Rodin, the Frank Lloyd Wright survey and the brace of Doc Martens.

Besides on Cromwell Rd, the Natural History Museum is one of London ‘s finest Gothic-revival edifices, but even its expansive cathedral-like chief entryway can look squashed when you ‘re confronted with hosts of shouting schoolkids. Keep off from the dinosaur exhibit while the childs are about and look into out the mammal balcony, the Blue Whale exhibit and the spooky, moonlit rain forest in the ecology gallery.

Camden Markets

The immense Camden Markets could be the closest England gets to free-form pandemonium outside the patios of football bowl. They stretch between Camden and Chalk Farm tubing Stationss, integrating Camden Lock on the Grand Union Canal, and acquire so crowded on weekends that you ‘ll believe you ‘re in the Third World. The markets include the Camden Canal Market ( bric-a-brac, furniture and interior decorator apparels ) , Camden Market ( leather goods and ground forces excess cogwheel ) and the Electric Market ( records and 1960s vesture ) .

After Camden Market, the colorful Portobello Market is London ‘s most celebrated ( and crowded ) weekend street market and is best seen on a Saturday forenoon before the gridlock sets in. It ‘s full of old-timers, jewelry, cultural knick-knacks, second-hand apparels and fruit and veg stables. Get downing near the Sun in Splendour saloon in Notting Hill, it wends its manner due norths to merely past the Westway overpass.

Hyde Park

Humongous Hyde Park used to be a royal hunting land, was one time a locale for affaire d’honneurs, executings and Equus caballus racing, and even became a elephantine murphy field during WWII. It is now a topographic point of fresh air, spring coloring material, lazy sunbathers and leghorns on the Serpentine. Features of the park include sculptures by Jacob Epstein and Henry Moore and the Serpentine Gallery, which holds impermanent exhibitions of modern-day art.

Near Marble Arch, Speaker ‘s Corner started life in 1872 as a response to serious public violences. Every Sunday anyone with a soapbox – or anything else to stand on – can mouth off or jog on about anything at all.

Kew Gardens

Kew Gardens, in Richmond, Surrey, is both a beautiful park and an of import botanical research Centre. There ‘s a huge sweep of lawn and formal gardens and two surging Victorian conservatories – the Palm House and the Temperate House – which are place to alien works life. It ‘s one of the most visited sights on the London tourer docket, which means that it can acquire really crowded, particularly in the summer. And with nearby Heathrow continuously ptyalizing out jets, there is n’t much opportunity of entire peace and quiet.

Off the Beaten Track

Hampstead Heath is one of the few topographic points in London where you can really bury that you ‘re in the center of an 800-sq-mi ( 1300-sq-km ) metropolis. There are forests, hayfields, hills, bathing pools and, most significantly of all, tonss of infinite. After a alert walk on the heath, dad into the Spaniard ‘s Inn for a draft or have a expression at Robert Adam ‘s beautiful Kenwood House and wander around its romantic evidences. You can lose the twentieth century wholly in Church Row, Admiral ‘s Walk and Flask Walk, which have integral Georgian bungalows, patios and houses.

Highgate Cemetery

Highgate Cemetery ca n’t be beaten for its Victorian Gothic ambiance and downright ghostliness. Its extended and overgrown evidences include cypress trees, Egyptian-style catacombs, plenty chipped angels to delight the most discerning Joy Division fan, Karl the more serious Marx brother and personalised graves reflecting their bizarre dwellers.

Kensal Green and Brompton graveyards are besides Victorian delectations, complete with catacombs and angels.

Holland Park

Holland Park is both a residential territory, full of elegant town houses, and an inner-city oasis of verdure, complete with tittuping Inachis ios and scurrying bunnies, the restored leftovers of a Jacobean sign of the zodiac ( now set aside for the universe ‘s backpackers ) , two exhibition galleries and formal gardens. Nearby, the Arabesque luster of Leighton House is full of Pre-Raphaelite pictures of dreamy, barely dressed Greek ladies stealing their custodies into the milklike Waterss of public baths.

Brick Lane Market

Sunday forenoon means beigels for breakfast at Brick Lane market in the East End. The land is strewn with covers covered in everything from rusty nails to gold tickers. Haggling ‘s the key, though consonants drop off vowels faster than zeros bead off monetary values.

Ye olde Kensington Market is the topographic point to travel to replace your hood mohair jumper, rotter bag and kilt, and why non acquire a haircut, tattoo, pierced upper ear and a new motto painted on your leather jacket while you ‘re there?

For a pot of hoarded wealth at the Victoria Line ‘s terminal, caput South to Brixton Market, a cosmopolite dainty made up of a rainbow alliance of reggae music, slick Muslim sermonizers, halal meat and fruit and veggies. Its stock list includes wigs, homeopathic root remedies, caprine animal meat and rare records.

& # 1057 ; & # 1087 ; & # 1080 ; & # 1089 ; & # 1086 ; & # 1082 ;
& # 1083 ; & # 1080 ; & # 1090 ; & # 1077 ; & # 1088 ; & # 1072 ; & # 1090 ; & # 1091 ; & # 1088 ; & # 1099 ;

Bill Bryson, Notes from a little Island, L, 1999

Christopher Daniell, A Traveller & # 8217 ; s History of England, Birminghem, 1995

Peter Ackroyd, London: The Biography, L, 2000