‘You find no man, at all intellectual,
who is willing to leave London.
No, Sir, when a man is tired of London,
he is tired of life, for there is in London
all that life can afford’.
Samuel Johnson
London – the center of the world attraction. The city where the history intertwines with the present so closely. The city of Big Ben, the monarchy, rains and fogs, the British, drinking tea, the great detective Sherlock Holmes – everything that comes to mind after the phrase from school books of the English language textbooks ‘London is the capital of Great Britain …’
And though I spent two months here and went more than one dozen kilometers, exploring the city, I still think that I saw only a hundredth part of London. Eat traditional fish-and-chips in the British pub, opened in 1515; admire sunsets in the Regent’s Park; bypass the most beautiful palaces and gardens; visit home of Charles Dickens and go through Baker Street, having glanced to Sherlock Holmes’s apartment; feed squirrels in the Saint James Park, who are ready to steal your nuts at the first opportunity; photograph ideal white houses in Chelsea and pastel houses in Notting Hill; spend several hours in Hatchards – the oldest bookstore in the British capital; eat the most tasty snacks and buy vintage pictures in Portobello market; bypass almost all shops on Oxford Street and get lost for a few hours in & Other Stories; meet Victoria Beckham in her first mono boutique on Dover Street; inspired by street-style and see favorite bloggers at London Fashion Week; dine with friends in the park near beloved University of the arts; get lost in corridors of Chelsea University; take the car and to leave the city to spend weekends in the real British hotel in a small village; enjoy the night city from the London Eye…