"London, England" a London Travel Page by MarkJochim

How to introduce London?!!? I have always loved history and London has a richer history than any other place I'd ever visited. Today, it is truly one of the world's great cities - in fact, I'm torn between it and Hong Kong as my favorite city now.

My first (and, to date, only) visit to the city was for nine days at the end of May 2003. My best friend and I had come to England for the purpose of attending two Bruce Springsteen concerts. Since the time-frame neatly coincided with the 50th anniversary of the first ascent of Mount Everest, we also purchased tickets for a special presentation given by most of the surviving members of the 1953 British expedition. In addition to history and rock music, I also have an intense interest in ships and the sea so we took a day trip to Southampton in order to see the QE2 during a visit in her last season of transatlantic crossings. Another day trip took us to Dover and across the Channel to Calais.

All of these scheduled events and travelling out of the city left us without a whole lot of time to actually explore London. Still, we did get to see and do many things including spending an afternoon in Greenwich (see separate page), viewing the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace, climbing to the top of the dome at St. Paul's Cathedral, and riding the London Eye ferris wheel. I'll have to save the Tower of London, War Cabinet Rooms, Globe Theatre, etc., etc. for another visit.

I do, however, now consider myself an expert at riding the Tube and the intercity trains. Although London has a reputation as one of the world's most expensive cities, I do have plenty of insight on how to spend time visiting there while staying on a tight budget.

I hope to include some of those budget tips on this page and in my travelogues, but (as usual) I will primarily focus on the history and stories behind the places I visited. Enjoy....