I thought i’d share my thoughts on London, England which I visited for the first time for two and a half days last week. Obviously, London is an extremely popular tourist destination as well as being one of the economic hubs of the world. I will say without a doubt that I was completely enthralled with the city. For a city of it’s size, London was quite clean, fairly friendly and seemed a bit more grounded than say, New York. Cultural institutions such as the National Gallery and British Museum are government subsidized which allows more people the oppurtunity to visit these fascinating places. Public squares such as Trafalgar Square and Leicester Square are entertaining, busy and non-threatning. Traffic was obviously extremely busy and i’m sure the road network is down right confusing (especially to North Americans), but never seemed as deadlocked as other cities its size.
But there are some issues with the city. Why it doesn’t make better use of the Thames in a lot of areas is beyond me. The Southbank is up and coming promenade, but still seems to be stunted in one too many places to make it a great walk along the river in the downtown region. The reach of the public transit system in London is fantastic, but still suffers from congestion as well as overly-early closures of certain subway lines. And of course, there is the whole outrageous cost of living issue.
All in all, no one can argue that London is one of the top urban destinations in the world. I am throughly impressed with the city and hope to visit it sometime in the future.
