by Sammy Stein

Created on: February 22, 2008

The best thing about my city? well, the fact it is London for a start. That simple fact means that already, you know it is big, full of different areas and cultures.

Johnson wrote that, ' If a man is bored with London, he is bored with life' and how true this is. London has so many good things about it that it is very difficult to list the best things but I will try.

The open spaces - Regents Park, Hyde park, Green Park, Sloane Square, Wimbledon Common, Hampstead Heath, Clapham Common, Lincoln's Inn Fields. Open spaces are an integral part of the city. Each one has its own atmosphere. Wimbledon has Wombles according to tales and you can almost imagine them living there, in their burrows, making good use of rubbish we throw away. The deer and foxes that inhabit most of our open spaces are very special in the city too. Even in the ehart of the business area there are little areas of open space. Lincoln's Inn Fields is behind the law courts- just where you don't expect them to be. Then there is Highgate cemetery, Peckham cemetery, many other cemeteries and even little islands in the city have flowering trees and shrubs on them. The Cityof London itself ismeant to have a church for every week and many of them have a small area of old cemetary where you can find peace and solitude even in the heart of town.

The River - The River Thames flows steadily through London and creates its own particular life within the life of the city. Barges loaded with rubbish still plow the river. It is tidal, which makes it special as the activity is far less at low tide, when you can walk along the banks in some places. The Thames is the old father of the city - it is why it grew in the first place and now it is clean it is full of fish- we even get the odd dolphin or whale coming up as far as the Thames Barrier.
There used to be other rivers flowing through London - most now diverted to undeground culverts but the Fleet can still be glimpsed at Hampstead where it forms the lakes as it stops flowing for a time, then it flows underground, to be glimpsed above ground rarely. At Fleet Street it is wide but submerged itself below the city streets.

Canary Wharf - that towering monster of a skyscraper - one of very few in London. The Canary Wharf Tower is the culmination of a huge area of docklands that have been re-developed.What were tenement back streets and back to back housing have been replaced by soaring towers and exclusive apartments. Some of the old docks can still be seen and the

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