| Everything in London comes across as new and | | | | Thames. |
| different. Throughout history, its people, fashions, | | | | The first City of London |
| trends and street life have always expressed the | | | | What is today London was once a small, rather |
| very essence of city life. Like New York, London is a | | | | insignificant settlement called Plowida, a name that |
| city that never sleeps. Millions of tourists arrive in | | | | means "settlement on the wide river". The Romans |
| London every year, many of them already half in | | | | conquered the region in the first century and |
| love with the city. You see them in the London | | | | founded the fortified city of Londinium around 47 CE. |
| Underground (the tube), on red double-decker buses | | | | The Roman city of London covered an area of |
| and stepping into taxis. The new central London | | | | approximately 1 km2. The Romans built a bridge over |
| traffic zone, where private transport is essentially | | | | the Thames, and used its banks as a shipping port |
| banned, makes the sights of London more navigable | | | | for minerals and agricultural products. Londinium grew |
| than ever before. It isalso possible, and very | | | | very quickly in the second century, when it became |
| pleasant, to walk through the city on foot, or to rent | | | | the commercial centre of the Roman province of |
| a bicycle along the Victorian Embankment on the | | | | Britannia Superior. |