A day trip to London part 1

It's hard to imagine a journey more guaranteed to please than a day trip to London, with all the excitement and variety that one of the world's greatest capital cities has to offer.

There's just so much to see in London that it is well worth planning your day carefully before you set off.

Once you arrive you could do worse than act like a proper tourist and take one of the many open-top bus rides which cover the obvious attractions and help you to get your bearings.

If you'd rather make your own way around, hop off the bus as you wish.

The tour departs from Piccadilly Circus.

It is difficult to say what is the real centre of London, but many people would choose Piccadilly Circus. This is because it is not only central but also the heart of London's enter­tainment world. Within a few hundred yards of it we find most of London's best known thea­tres and cinemas, the most famous restaurants and the most luxurious night-clubs.

In the middle of Piccadilly Circus there is a statue said to be of Eros, the god of love. Few people know that it really represents the Angel of Christian Charity. On Cup Final night and New Year 's Eve it is boarded up to prevent over-enthusiastic revellers from climbing onto it.

It is particularly in the evening that Piccadilly Circus is thronged with people going to the theatre or the cinema, or perhaps to a restaurant. Many others have come for an evening stroll. The crowd is a motley one, for it is composed of people of many nationalities. The atmosphere is distinctly cosmopolitan, and one hears around one a great variety of lan­guages. It has been said that if you listen carefully, you may even hear English!

It is out of the question to tour London without catching a glimpse of Nelson standing high over his Trafalgar Square, anything from 167-185 feet high (ideas vary, ask the stu­dents who try to climb it on rag nights). What is certain, however, is that the column was built during the early part of the 19^th century to commemorate Nelson's victory in 1805, and there is no doubt that this national hero still draws the crowds. Crowds of tourists as well as those famous pigeons still flock there in all seasons, and at Christmas time a vast tree stands there surrounded every evening by scores of carol singers.

You don't have to search for history in London, there is history around virtually every corner. The most obvious landmarks are the Tower of London, Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Parliament.

The Tower of London is an open history book of England. It has been a fortress, pal­ace, home of the Crown Jewels and national treasures, arsenal, mint, prison, observatory and tourist attraction", wrote the Duke of Edinburgh in a book celebrating the Tower's 900^th anniversary.

The Tower of London was started by William the Conqueror who invaded Britain in 1066. He built the White Tower to impress and frighten the English. The Tower of London brings to the visitor's mind a vision of imprisonment, torture and violent death at the hands of a masked executioner with an axe. Many prisoners laid their heads on the chopping block. Among the victims were noblemen, politicians, traitors and two of Henry VIII's wives.

The men who guard the Tower - and the Crown Jewels - are Beefeaters. They can tell you everything about its history. Their clothes are the uniform of royal guards of the year 1500.

The ravens with their clipped wings are another famous sight. Legend has it that without them the Tower will fall and the Kingdom with it. Kings and queens have come and gone, some even lost their heads on Tower Green, but the Tower of London has survived them all.

Happier ghosts haunt the aisles of the superb Gothic Westminster Abbey, where a succession of English monarchs from William I have been crowned and many are buried, in magnificent tombs recently restored to their original colours. But it's not only the crowned heads that are worthily remembered here. George Frederick Handel, Sir Walter Scott, and Oliver Goldsmith are elaborately commemorated in the Abbey's "Poets' Corner". Over a thousand monuments are crowded into the building; they not only commemorate prominent men and women from every walk of life, but also give a breathtaking view of English monumental sculpture. However, it is perhaps the simple grave of the Unknown Warrior, which is the most poignant. His tomb symbolizes the sacrifice of more than a million British who lost their lives in World War I.