London - a potted history and recommended reading

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Potted history:

London's had more than its fair share of historical ups and downs. Things got off to a bumpy start when Boudicca burned the Roman encampment of Londinium to the ground in 60 AD, just as it was approaching its' eighteenth birthday. With the 'rebuild' London was chosen as the capital (previously it had been Colchester) and began to flourish. By the fifth century the Romans were forced to return home with their empire collapsing around them, London's lights dimmed and the country slipped into the Dark Ages.

Having survived the Black Death, the English civil war and the Great Plague London was then virtually wiped out by the Great Fire in 1666. This provided Sir Christopher Wren with a 'blank canvass' on which to try out his architectural skills. With a boom in trade London was set to become not only England's biggest city - but the world's, and by the start of the nineteenth century London was the seat of an Empire that spanned the globe. Colonial wealth combined with the technological know-how of the Industrial Revolution saw massive building projects across Victorian London and the population swelled to nearly 7 million by the close of the century.

German Zeppelin's loomed over the city in WWI, but caused relatively little damaged compared with the Luftwaffe's sustained bombing campaign of WWII. London took a long time to psychologically get over the 'blitz', but aesthetically many of the scars still remain today; in the shape of the high-rise accommodation knocked up to cover the rubble. By the Sixties London was once again 'swinging' and hasn't looked back since.

About town:

The best way to get around London is undoubtedly by tube. Traffic congestion makes overland travel painfully slow and bus routes are even more difficult to fathom out than the tube map. To save money it's best to buy a Travelcard (choose between Day, Off-Peak, Weekend and Weekly) which provide unlimited travel within the allocated zones on all tubes and buses. During the rush-hour tubes can get very overcrowded. If you're planning on exploring the city on foot an A-Z street map of London will prove invaluable.

Handy numbers:

Central Tourist Office: Britain Visitor Centre, Lower Regent Street (Piccadilly Circus), Tel: 020 7932 2000
Airport enquiries: Heathrow Tel: 0870 000 0123, Gatwick Tel: 0870 000 2468, Stansted Tel: 0870 0000303
National Rail Enquiries: Tel: 0845 748 4950, Heathrow Express: Tel: 0845 600 1515, Gatwick Express: Tel: 08705 30 1530
Emergencies (police/ambulance): Tel: 999

Take five:

London: The Biography by Peter Ackroyd: highly acclaimed, highly detailed history of the capital

Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell: Life on the streets between the wars

Lights Out for the Territory by Iain Sinclair: London's architecture under Sinclair's prosaic microscope

London Fields by Martin Amis: Nicola Six, Keith Talent and Guy Clinch roll around in London's underbelly

The London Encyclopedia by B. Weinreb and C. Hibbert: The stuff pub quizzes should be made of.

Also see the Spanish history on their cities: Barcelona History - Bilbao History - Cadiz History - Cordoba History - Granada History - Madrid History - Salamanca History - Santander History - Santiago History - Segovia History - Seville History - Toledo History - Valencia History - Valladolid History - Zaragoza History

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