London: Europe’s Greatest City

London is repeatedly cited as one of the great cities of the modern world, steeped in culture, history and style. What was once the hub of the British Empire has now become one of the hottest tourist destinations in Western Europe, attracting millions of international travellers every year. So what makes London so special?

Borough Market, London, UK by Garry Knight

Food and Drink

London has followed in the footsteps of its Atlantic cousins (New York, Chicago, California) and has seen an explosion in street food. The absolute abundance of nationalities that live in London combine to make an incredibly ethnic diverse cuisine, served at street level. A lot of people believe that the real food of a city can be found at grassroots, which is not coincidentally the cheapest and also the best.

Whether you’re looking for traditional British pies (Eat My Pies) Korean fusion (Kimchi Cult) or Spannish Churros (Churros Garcia) then you won’t be disappointed walking the streets of London. But if street food isn’t for you, you can feel safe in knowing that you can stumble across Michelin Stars as frequently as you do black cabs.

Things to Do

London is incredibly famous for its markets, whether it’s the local stereotypical cockney “4 for £1″ vegetable stalls, all the way up to Portobello Road; your shopping temptations can be satiated across the city. There’s something unique about the London markets, entirely different from Indian or American; there’s a community sense in even the largest collections of stalls.

Immortalised in the Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts film, Notting Hill plays host to a carnival every year which is reason enough to stop by London. Originating from West Indian roots, the carnival has come to encompass everything London and English about the capital; offering parades, music, shopping and incredible feats of open air shopping.

In Southwark, food and shopping combine gloriously in the famous Borough Market. The market is open for wholesalers every weekday in the obscene hours of 2am to 8am but for retail; it opens Thursday to Sunday. The market combines the food from every culture which has settled in London, reflecting the incredible diversity of the city in the medium of delicious food.

If shopping and food isn’t your thing, there are many parts of the city now transformed into tourism paradises. London Dungeons is a great attraction for children, as both entertaining and educating; recreating ghoulish gallows humour around the theme of medieval dungeons in the British capital. The Tower of London, though less for humour, also operates tours with an educational taste.

Photo by Wyemji

Entertainment

Just as New York has Broadway, London has the West End. The theatre shows range from comedies to tragedies, short sharp plays to drawn out epics. The West End is home to some of the longest running plays in the world such as Cats, Les Miserables and The Mousetrap. Such is the power and fame of the theatre of London, you can expect to see international filmstars acting out on small stages in the capital.

London also has an incredible dirge of museums and galleries, with many being free to enter. The British Museum, the Natural History Museum and the Science Museum are but a few of the great educational resources available to those traveling into London. Wars are remembered in vast memory and tribute across a lot of the city, and those with an eye for paint and canvas would do well to visit the Tate Modern, Whitechapel and the Royal Academy.

Photo by robmcm

London is truly Europe’s greatest city, if not just for the fact that the Royal Family of Great Britain reside there. From this seat, vast corners of the globe were controlled in the days of the Empire and though the influence has dwindled; London has risen up to command the respect of nations ten times the size of the British Isles.

Street Food Ref: https://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/2012/apr/24/top-10-london-street-food-stalls

This article was created on behalf of Brunel University, a top London university offering a wide range of undergraduate and postgraduate courses.

Tags: black cabs, borough market london, british empire, cockney, community sense, culture history, feats, film notting hill, hugh grant, indian roots, international travellers, london markets, music shopping, real food, spannish, street food, streets of london, tourist destinations, york chicago

Category: Cities, Cities