Impressions and Insights from "Walking Through The City"

So last Friday I went on my first walking tour! I felt super tourist-y walking around with my little book but it was so fun and I really learned a lot.

One of the most surprising things I learned was that London was actually founded by the Romans. I never really thought about who founded it originally because the city is so old...but I definitely had no idea it was part of the Roman Empire. They were here from 43 AD to 410 AD, and they named the city "Londinium" which eventually evolved to London (duh). They also bridged the Thames River and introduced Christianity to England which is pretty significant stuff. Who knew! Of course the Roman Empire fell back into the hands of the "heathen" Anglo-Saxons in the late 400's, but those Romans got there first!

The tour took us around "The City" which is the oldest part of London and the site of the old "Londinium." Supposedly there are still remnants of a wall around it that date way back to the Roman times but we didn't get to see those. Anyways I just though that was so cool.

One of the first things we saw was St. Mary Le Bow church. This was one of the first churches designed by Christopher Wren after the Great Fire of 1066. Something I found really interesting was the legend of the "Bow Bells." In medieval times there was a rooster on the top of the church and the tradition goes that anyone born within the sound of the bells is "Cockney," meaning that they will be as brazen and loud as a rooster. Over time this evolved into a whole Cockney culture, they even have there own type of code language called Cockney Rhyming Slang...it's pretty fascinating. The other cool thing about this part of town is that it was a central location for medieval jousts, there are ancient Roman baths just across the street, and all the streets in the area actually used to be little stream

s that led into the Thames River. We also ate lunch in the crypt underneath the church which was cool, even though the food was totally gross.

St. Mary le Bow Church (and the ugliest cherubs ever)

Let's see...we saw the Temple ruins of Mithras and even though that wasn't very impressive to look at, it represents such ancient history and suggests that there was a mysterious Persian religion that rivaled Christianity in the Roman empire. I thought that was the coolest story.

Now "The City" is London's main financial district. We saw the Royal Exchange...which is a cool building but I really don't know anything about it...there is a grasshopper on top of it, bet you didn't know that!

We saw the Thames river (prounced Tems, not Thaymes) and had a really good view of a bridge which I originally thought was the London Bridge but I guess it's actually called the Tower Bridge. There were a lot of big barges and freighter ships on the river, so they use it a lot but the water is totally gross. I heard that supposedly there used to be a stream that fed into the river a really long time ago and people would totally just use that stream as a toilet! There was a board laid across it with holes and everything so that people could just do their business into this stream that fed right into the Thames, which was their main source of drinking water, wash water, etc. How sick is that?!? Sorry that's kind of a random, nasty story but it gives you a better idea of how gross this river probably is...but it's still very picturesque! It also makes me really glad that I live in this time era where we have health laws and sanitation regulations in place.

Some other highlights were the Lloyd Building and the Swiss Insurance Building (aka "the great gherkin") -- both amazing examples of modern architecture. I love how the ancient arcitecture and the modern architecture stand side by side and really highlight each other. This is an incredible city.