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London - fantasy and reality - part two

03 February 2010 • Travel time: with 01 January 2010 on 25 January 2010
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London informal

Remember those three roads that start at Trafalgar Square.

Two have already passed. Now we will head along the third one, which will lead us to areas no less interesting than those we have already visited. []

Piccadilly Circus is a round square from where several radial streets diverge.

Another symbol of London, a place easily recognizable thanks to one of the buildings literally immersed in the light of advertising lights.

Looking at the photographs of this house, still there, in the world of socialism, it seemed that the whole British capital looked like this - a model of capitalist prosperity. How naive we were!

This "advertising house" was in a single copy. The streets radiating from the square, including the famous Piccadilly, were very poorly lit, and it was rather scary to enter them in the evening.


After dismantling, standing in the middle of Piccadilly Circus, a very modest monument to Eros, the entertainment center moved to nearby Leicester Square. This square, rather deserted during the day, in the evening fills with a crowd eager for entertainment.

Here begins a completely different, unofficial London.

Almost the entire territory of the square is occupied by a moderately polluted square. It is filled with statues of great people. Among them is a very nice sculpture of a young Charlie Chaplin.

She was not here by chance.

The perimeter of the square is surrounded by cinemas built in the first half of the twentieth century.

Once upon a time, in pre-television times, they flourished. Today you will not see long queues at the box office here, some of the cinemas have closed.

But still, this place is worth a visit. What kind of personalities you will not meet here.

Premiere screenings of new films are traditionally held in cinemas surrounding the square.

And most importantly, Leicester Square is still the gateway to the world of London entertainment.

Located to the north, the Soho district is a few moderately dirty streets, on which porn industry establishments are concentrated for every taste and pocket. Soho is also famous for its pubs.

Speaking of London, it is impossible not to talk about these establishments. And not only about those located in Soho.

The English pub is also a symbol of the country. It is immediately recognizable by its dark brown facade cladding and garlands of bright colors. Looks very picturesque.

Once upon a time, the word "pub" meant an ordinary pub with a supply of beer of different varieties. It was also a kind of club for a certain circle of visitors.

Today, the name "pub" is gradually being replaced by the word "bar" and they serve mainly cocktails. The old English pub turns into another attraction for tourists.

For example, on the same Baker Street where Conan Doyle settled his famous Sherlock Holmes, there is Moriarty's Pub, which, as you know, was the mortal enemy of the great detective.

Times change, traditions change.

Leicester Square is not only the "key" to Soho's porn industry. There are many theaters around the square, specializing mainly in musicals.


Visiting such a performance has become a kind of tradition for tourists.

The performances here are of a fairly high level, with excellent direction and rich scenery. As part of the performance, you can often meet stars of the first magnitude.

Among all this show industry, two theaters stand out - the national opera "Colosseum", the green dome of which is clearly visible from Trafalgar Square and the famous Royal Opera House "Covent Garden", named after the area adjacent to Leicester Square.

My diary - year 1996

A visit to one of London's theaters is an obligatory part of the program of any tour. Usually this is watching a musical in one of the many West End venues.

Walk like that, walk - we decided and went for tickets, but not anywhere, but to Covent Garden - the most famous and prestigious theater in the English capital.

Two stops on the subway on "our" Piccadilly line and we go straight to the main front.

I will try to explain why this particular theater was chosen and what it means for London.

Covent Garden is England's largest opera house, founded in 1732. At first, only dramatic performances were staged on its stage, and in 1847, Covent Garden became an exclusively opera house.

The theater building acquired its present appearance in 1856. From the beginning, Covent Garden has been an Italian opera house and its official name has been the Royal Italian Opera House.

All performances, regardless of the original language of the opera, were translated into Italian. This practice ended only in 1892, after Gustav Mahler staged The Ring of the Nibelungen in German here.

Since that time, the word "Italian" was removed from the name of the theater and it became known as the "Royal Opera House".

In our time, operas are given here in different languages ​ ​ - in those in which they are written.


Our family stands in confusion in front of the modest facade of the Royal Opera House. We cannot find the box office. Not even a hint of her. Walked around the entire building around the perimeter. True, this path was much shorter than around Victoria Station. We repeated the tour again.

But apart from the locked doors, they didn’t find anything, only somewhere, on the opposite side from the main facade, they saw something similar to a service entrance, but with an intercom, thanks to which they found out that there was still someone inside, and he, this someone explained that the box office was two blocks from the theater building. What we saw when we got there could hardly be called a ticket sales place.

The box office of the Royal Opera is a large hall furnished with period furniture.

We were seated in easy chairs, treated to coffee and treated as guests of honor, although we took the cheapest tickets to the gallery. Unfortunately, our budget no longer allowed, and after yesterday's robbery, he was already bursting at the seams.

But more on that later.

Tickets were handed to us in envelopes with gilded patterns, each separately.

A few years after our trip, the theater building was overhauled. I don’t know what they did there, but then, in 1996, we got a shock from what we saw.

Of course, the gallery is not a benoir box. Yes, and they, these lodges, the walls of which were pasted over with worn wallpaper, looked rather wretched. What then to say about the gallery.

It was hot here, the audience sat almost on top of each other, there was no ventilation. There was a tiny buffet on the landing, literally attacked by the inhabitants of the gallery, ready, after an hour of sitting in the terrible heat, to sweep away everything that quenches their thirst.

At intermission, I went downstairs to the stalls. It turned out to be cleaner, cooler, but not by much.

But there was no shortage of attendants dressed in 18th-century costumes. The hierarchy of the service personnel was clearly visible from their clothes and manner of holding.

Spoiled by the luxury of the Bolshoi Theater, and not only it, we simply could not imagine such wretchedness of the Royal Opera.

And the performance itself, performed by the Royal Ballet, was staged rather poorly.


Here is a world-class theater for you.

But there will be something to talk about when we return home. Of course, only good things. And what is written in this chapter, let it remain between us.

Baker Street - fantasy and reality

Finally, here she is. The long-awaited Baker Street.

The street where Sir Arthur Conan - Doyle settled his virtual detective Sherlock Holmes - the most beloved literary hero of my childhood.

But, the main thing is that the writer opened London for me. Let not modern, but the one of the late nineteenth century.

The power of talent affected the mind as if its heroes live in our time.

Arthur Conan-Doyle's London is a special city. Here you will not even find mention of the sights that are described in the previous chapters, although most of them adorned the city in the time of Sherlock Holmes.

London Conan - Doyle - a purely functional city that serves only the interests of the protagonist.

But often, even regardless of the author, London is in the foreground, overwhelming Sherlock Holmes himself with its power.

Two cities - real and virtual, created by the talent of the writer, are completely different from each other. They are connected mainly by infrastructure elements - the names of districts, streets, railway stations, bridges, and so on.

Putting these two Londons together would give us a relatively complete picture. If not for one circumstance. Difference in time. There are more than a hundred years between Conan-Doyle's London and the London described in this story.

Therefore, what I saw, to put it mildly, did not correspond to my fantasies.

For example, the famous Baker Street. One of the most important transport arteries of the English capital.

Baker Street Underground Station is located in a huge building, the main facade of which overlooks Marylebone Road. It is somewhat reminiscent of the Garden Ring in Moscow. Yes, and the house itself with a metro station can rightly be called "Stalinist", if we weren't in London.


If you turn right and walk a little along Baker Street, you get straight to the Sherlock Holmes Museum.

We went from the subway exit to the left and almost immediately found ourselves at the end of a long queue. It began at the entrance to one of the most famous (I'm tired of repeating this phrase) and visited places - the Madame Tussauds wax museum.

Here you will meet members of the royal family, with pop stars and infamous personalities, and in the underground part of the museum, the so-called "room of horrors" - with executioners cracking down on their victims.

Here is what the guidebook says about Madame Tussauds herself. "The founder of the museum, born Marie Grosholz, often faced death in her life.

She was a well-known wax figure master in Paris, and also taught the humanities to the sister of Louis XVI.

The leaders of the French Revolution commissioned her to make masks from the faces of decapitated victims of the guillotine.

Married to the civil engineer Franç ois Tussauds, she came to London in the early 19th century, and by the time of her death in 1850 (she died at the age of 89) her work was already known.

In 1884, her grandson, Joseph Randal Tussauds, placed the figures in a museum off Baker Street, where they are now. Since then, the collection has kept pace with the life of society, capturing both the good and the bad, the majestic. "

This is the best wax museum on the planet - more than a thousand figures of prominent figures in politics, art, outstanding generals and great scientists. The statues of Napoleon and Robespierre were personally sculpted by Madame Tussauds from living originals, when the art of photography was generally unknown.

After visiting the main exhibition, you find yourself in the "room of horrors", which presents various punishments and crimes in the history of England.

In the underground part of the museum, a special train passes, which, passing through this terrible exposition, takes you directly to the souvenir shop.

Here is the entrance to the London Planetarium.


The Wax Museum is often referred to simply as Madame Tussauds. As well as in Amsterdam, Hong Kong, New York and in many other places where similar expositions are created, following the model of London.

Turning around the corner of the "Stalinist" house, we find ourselves on a wide and noisy Baker Street, which rests on Regent Park. Here, a little further back, is the beautiful London Zoo, well worth a visit if you have some free time.

But you can only dream of this in London. Moreover, we are located near the museum, which was and is the main goal of our trip to London.

The house is a museum of the legendary detective, literary character. According to the works of Arthur Conan Doyle, the private detective Sherlock Holmes and his friend Dr. Watson lived in an apartment at 221 B Baker Street from 1881 to 1904.

At the time these works were written, no such address existed in London. In this regard, when the museum was created, this "special" number was assigned to the house, which stands out from the general numbering of the street. The museum is housed in a four-story Victorian building.

The house was built in 1815 and is listed as Her Majesty's buildings of architectural and historical value, 2nd class. In addition to the museum sign, a typical London memorial plaque is attached to the outside of the house, which is installed on buildings in which any historical figures lived.

The plaque indicates that the consulting detective Sherlock Holmes lived in this house from 1881 to 1904.

tower of london

London has long been the capital of the largest empire and over the years has collected in its vaults a huge number of objects of material culture from around the world.

But the British capital itself has a rich history.

The Tower of London, better known to us as the Tower, is the most valuable collection, where most of the items related to the history of the city are concentrated. This is the oldest building that has survived to this day.

Throughout its long history, the Tower has been used both as a fortress, and as a prison, and even, at certain periods of time, as the residence of the king.


The Tower is not just a tower, but a complex of structures, somewhat comparable to the Moscow Kremlin. Certainly not in appearance. Here in London, the architecture is completely different. But, as in Moscow, the Tower includes both the Armory and the Diamond Fund.

The Tower of London served for centuries as a repository of personal royal arms and armor. The Royal Jewels were kept for many years in the Wakefield Tower, and since 1967 in a room specially created for this purpose.

This is the largest collection of jewelry in the world. It also includes dishes made of gold and royal crowns. Most of the ancient jewelry was sold or melted down by Cromwell, so the oldest items in the collection date back to the Restoration period.

The Imperial State Crown, made in 1838 for Queen Victoria, has no less than 3.000 precious stones, among them a huge ruby ​ ​ worn by Henry V at the Battle of Agincourt.

The Queen Mother's crown is adorned with the legendary 109-carat Kohinoor diamond, and the Royal Scepter is adorned with the world's largest 516.5-carat diamond.

The ravens of the Tower are also legendary. There is a belief that England will perish if they leave. Therefore, they clip their wings and feed them raw meat for slaughter. Having lost their freedom, the ravens were given the right to rest in a small cemetery in the gardens of the Tower.

Tower Bridge was built in 1894 by Queen Victoria and her husband Albert.

Even those who have never been to England will recognize him immediately. The bridge is visited by thousands of tourists every year. Londoners pass through it every day, most likely without even thinking about its history at that moment.

Tower Bridge - one of the symbols of London, owes its appearance to the decision of Parliament.

In the 18th and 19th centuries, many bridges crossed the Thames. The most famous of them is London Bridge. By 1750 it had become very shaky.

Vessels from all over the world gathered near the bridge, waiting for a place in the crowded harbor. At that time, the Thames was literally filled with various ships, so that it was possible to walk several kilometers along the decks of ships standing at the berths.


At the request of the municipality, city architect Horace Jones designed a Gothic drawbridge to be built downstream of London. Under such a bridge, ships heading to the docks up the Thames could pass freely.

The bridge project had one feature that many considered an original solution.

Horace Jones traveled widely. When he was in the Netherlands, small drawbridges spanning canals inspired him to create a counterweighted drawbridge.

Jones and his assistants developed the design for such a structure and decided to use unusual construction methods, combining steel structures with masonry.

This is how the world-famous appearance of the Tower Bridge arose. The most curious are not content with just watching the bridge work. They take the elevator up to the north tower, where the Tower Bridge Museum is located, to learn more about its history and visit an exhibition where an electronic doll introduces visitors to interesting details.

From the height of the pedestrian crossing, visitors have a stunning view of London.

If you look to the west, you can see St. Paul's Cathedral and the banking buildings in the City of London, as well as the Telecom Tower towering in the distance.

On the east side, the redeveloped Docklands district appears in front of the eye, striking with its Art Nouveau buildings.

Unusual, breathtaking, stunning - this is exactly the view from this famous bridge, the hallmark of London.

Purveyor to Her Majesty's Court

Can a store belong to high society? Is it possible?

Let him supply exclusive goods to the royal court, let his interiors be more luxurious than in Her Majesty's palace, let his prices be too high even for a far from poor buyer.

Everything is possible in London.

Along with such cities as Paris and Milan, the capital of Great Britain is considered to be the trendsetter of the world fashion.

The city is the only one of all the famous stores of the last century - the well-born "Harrods".

Thousands of shoppers visit the multi-storey building every day, the facade of which is decorated with garlands of electric light bulbs.


The Harrods store has become another landmark of London and is no less famous than the Tower. Buying at this place is not difficult, the wealth of choice is incredibly amazing.

The motto of the founders of "Harrods" was the expression - "everything, anyone and absolutely everything. " You can bravely spend the whole day in this place, because the Food Hall, decorated with marble, or the haberdashery department, made in the Egyptian style, more resemble some museums, where the exhibits are not difficult to take away with you, in special green bags.

Undoubtedly, only a few can afford it - the prices in this place are also phenomenal.

Therefore, buying at Harrods is a true indicator of a certain level of wealth.

But the store has become truly world famous for a reason that has nothing to do with trade.

The son of one of the brothers Al - Fayed - the owners of Harrods, who once took the place of Prince Charles, was the "boyfriend" who died with Princess Diana in a Paris car accident.

It is said that since then, not a single person connected with the royal court has used the services of the store, despite the official status of Her Majesty's supplier.

But in one of the luxurious halls on the first floor, a sculpture depicting this couple in love appeared and became a place of worship for "fans" from all over the world.

The English word "shopping" means "shopping". But I think it has a broader meaning. Rather, the word means a way of life. With this interpretation, it can become a kind of symbol of London trade.

In the Regent Street area, you can find a couple of shops, on the signs of which flaunts a crown - a sign that these establishments are visited by members of the royal family.

Therefore, there is simply no point in talking about any quality of goods and the level of local service.

The Queen Mother had a particular soft spot for the famous Harvey Nichols. This is a store for very rich men and the most beautiful women. Stylish and chic clothes from all possible world fashion capitals and the most expensive household goods are presented in abundance in this place.


In the event that you are especially independent financially, you have the opportunity to visit a cafe located here, where it will not be difficult for you to make very useful acquaintances.

The largest fabric department in Europe, striking in its scale and choice, can be visited at the John Lewis store on Oxford Street. Also here is the best place to choose dishes, furniture and haberdashery. A huge department of lamps and a variety of chandeliers can be found in the British Home Stores.

Contemporary and antique furniture provided by Peter Jones. In this place is the famous department of household utensils, a large selection of fabrics, especially linen.

Britain's favorite Marks & Spencer store. Buyers are attracted here by a wide variety of goods, departments for men, women and children, stylish and tastefully selected items. A fairly inexpensive store, very high quality food, a large collection of household goods.

London's department stores offer a fantastic range of goods and services, as well as a selection of clothes to suit all tastes.

In some of them you can not only make the appropriate purchases, but also have lunch, drink a cup of hot coffee and even get a haircut.

London is the capital of the world

The question is certainly interesting.

There are enough contenders for such a title today. But what are the selection criteria?

Here are some of the global events that took place in London in the second half of the last and the beginning of this century.

Year 1952. Great smog. A mixture of fog and industrial smoke descended on London for five days.

Soon, the concentration of combustion products in the air became so high that in the following weeks about 4.000 people died from smog in the city, and another 8.000 became victims of the disaster in the next few months.

The incident forced the authorities to seriously address this problem, as a result of which a nationwide law "On Clean Air" (1956) was issued, as well as a similar city law (1954)

Years 1960s. Thanks to the popular music bands "Beatles" and "Rolling Stones", London has become one of the world's centers of youth subculture, earning the nickname "Swinging London".


Year 1966. The England team won the World Cup in the final at Wembley Stadium.

London met the new millennium with the opening of several new unique structures, such as the Millennium Dome and the London Eye.

The giant Ferris wheel, erected next to the Parliament building, has become a new symbol of the city.

At the beginning of the 21st century, London won the right to host the 2012 Olympic Games. The UK capital will become the first city in the world to host the Olympics three times.

Latest news. Sunday Times.

"London Mayor Boris Johnson is planning to build a grand building for the 2012 Olympics that will become the new hallmark of the British capital. Billionaire steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal, the richest resident of the UK, will allocate 15 million pounds for this project.

A close friend of Lashkmi Mittal, also unnamed, told reporters that the Indian-born magnate 'loves living in London and would like to do something for the city'.

A monument with a height of more than 130 meters will be erected in the Olympic Park in East London. As planned by the authorities, it will be compared in popularity with the American Statue of Liberty and the Eiffel Tower in Paris.

Unnamed sources told the newspaper that 'The Mayor wants to see a stunning, ambitious, world-class work of art in the Olympic Park that visitors to the city will fall in love with'.

Among the six projects participating in the competition is a sculpture by Indian artist Anish Kapoor.

According to rumors, the structure will glow at night from the energy accumulated during the day by solar panels.

Meanwhile, critics accuse the mayor of London of being gigantic and fear that the monument will “become on par with the ‘wedding cake’ built by Mussolini in Rome, or with the 80-meter golden statue of the former Turkmen dictator Saparmurat Niyazov, which turned after the sun ".

Translated automatically from Russian. View original
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