London is one of the great cities of the world.  We have visited a number of times and still have more places we want to see.  Our wish list includes many places we've already seen besides those we haven't.  We could go back for several more stays.

 

For us, London primarily means museums and churches.  Both offer beautiful things to look at and direct connections to history.  British museums are among the best in the world.  There are many of them, and most are free.  Whatever one feels about British imperialism, it did have one good effect.  It enabled the British to collect the treasures of the world, and place them where the public can see them.  We realize how controversial this statement is.  We support getting their stolen treasures back.  In the meantime, we are grateful that they are available where we can see them and learn from them. 

 

British churches from centuries ago are special for us.  Not because we are religious.  But they are beautiful and  evoke special feelings. One is a kind of awe that people who lived so long ago, and had such primitive tools, managed to build these soaring edifices.  Even if you are not religious they lift your spirit.  At least they lift ours.  And many have an added aura because they have been witness to history.

 

Even the feel of London is special.  Very busy, lots of noisy traffic, bus drivers who emulate race car drivers (and almost succeed).  Crowds of people with skins of many colors hurrying along, talking on their cell phones in many different, and often unidentifiable, languages.  Streets of widely varying width that meander through the city along ancient paths.  Spacious parks with huge trees in the midst of the crowded concrete and stone places. Beautifully ornate buildings.  Iron gates guarded by disciplined foot or horse sentries,  dressed in striking red and black 18th century uniforms.  Bobbies (police) with those dome-shaped helmets. Streets and buildings with names you have heard or read all your life no matter where you are from.  Names like  London Bridge, The Tower of London, Baker Street, The Strand, Fleet Street, St. Martins in the Fields, Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, St. Paul's Cathedral, 110 Downing Street, Whitehall, Covent Garden, Tottenham Court Road, Piccadilly Circus, Charing Cross, Regent Street, Trafalgar Square and on and on.

 

But London has been dangerous in the last few years--the train bombings in 2005,  the recent July, 2007 failed car bomb attacks, one near Piccadilly circus.  What about that?  Yes, there is always the possibility of more attacks but London has about the most surveillance by closed circuit video cameras as any place on earth.  The London police are constantly vigilant, and the citizens are, too.  They seem to have a pretty good handle on how to protect against the possibility of further attacks.  Not that any preventive system can work 100 percent of the time.  And it only takes one time for terrorists to get both competent and lucky.  Nevertheless, we do not think that the current level of danger would deter us from visiting.  We are more likely to be put off by the strength of the Pound Sterling against the dollar than by the prospect of terrorist attacks.  But that is how we feel, and perhaps not how you feel.  Not only is travelling by mouse the least expensive way to travel, it is also the safest way.

 

      

 

 Victoria and Albert