"The man who is tired of London, is tired of life," observed the quintessential Londoner, Dr. Samuel Johnson.

Spreading over more than 1,600 square kilometers (618 square miles) from its core on the River Thames, London is the largest city in Europe. It has 7–12 million inhabitants (depending on who does the counting) and boasts as many as 20 million visitors a year. The nation's financial and publishing center, this capital city is grand, stimulating, and beautiful, and most cities in the world seem provincial by comparison. It can also be dreary, cold, and dirty. But it offers the visitor innumerable outstanding museums and galleries, imposing palaces and monuments, quaint squares and peaceful green parks, excellent stores, brilliant theater, and exciting nightlife. London is exhilarating and irresistible.

London has known the best of times and the worst of times since the Romans first erected a fort in the city of Londinium in the year AD 43. Its strategic setting on the banks of the Thames made it the Normans' first capital of England, and it later became the capital of the greatest empire in the world.

Despite past glories, Londoners have endured a number of overwhelming disasters throughout their long history. The city was destroyed, and more than 70,000 Britons massacred, in the great revolt of the Iceni led by Queen Boudicca against the Romans in AD 60. When Wat Tyler led the Peasants' Revolt here in 1381, he was struck down and killed by the Lord Mayor, the hopes of the British peasantry dying with him. King Charles I lost his head here in 1649, ushering in Cromwell's brief, cheerless Commonwealth. In 1665, the Great Plague spread throughout the city, leaving thousands dead. Just as the epidemic began to diminish, the Great Fire of 1666 raged through the city and burned most of London to the ground. The rise of the Industrial Revolution brought even more misery to the city: slums filled with the oppressed poor who worked in its factories rose in grim counterpoint to the dazzling growth of the British Empire. London's next and nearly its most disastrous catastrophe was the Blitz of WWII: night after night the Germans mercilessly bombed London for more than a year until 30,000 Londoners were dead, and much of the city—including the Houses of Parliament—was destroyed. That London thrives today is a testimony to the city's indomitable spirit.

Throughout the ages, Londoners have met their fate with humor, spirit, and optimism. The Empire has all but disappeared, unemployment is a perpetual worry, London Bridge has moved to Arizona, but the people of London go on. London can be as familiar or as historic as a visitor wishes it to be.

London Hotels

Unlike cities in warmer climates, most activity in London takes place indoors. The life of the city is played out in its theaters, clubs, bookstores, music halls, and pubs. More so than in Rome, Athens, Canton, or Delhi, you need to pay admission to enjoy the scene, but few cities give so much for your money.

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