London

One of the best ways to see London is from the air. Unfortunately, that was fairly difficult until recently. Now it's as easy as stepping onto a platform that moves slower than the average escalator into the London Eye pod.

The London Eye can only approximately be described as an enormous Ferris Wheel. The designers beginning with the originators Julia Barfield and David Marks have produced an engineering marvel. True enough it rotates in a circle through a vertical plane. But it never stops or starts apart from the occasional need to accommodate the elderly or handicapped.

London has such a long history, filled with great churches, monuments, art and history museums that seeking nature here often isn't what immediately comes to mind. But that's an error, since London is home to one of the oldest zoos in existence and one of the newest aquariums.

For the London traveler looking for variety, the West End is the place to be. Piccadilly Circus is next door, where antique book shops mix with the latest restaurants and Covent Garden is not far. And, then of course, there's the world-renowned theater - the rival (some would say tutor) of Broadway.

Soho is a short walk away. For those interested in the red-light district in the home of the Puritans, that's here - and has been for over a century.

Trafalgar Square is the center of England in more ways than one. At its south end lies what used to be Charing Cross, the point from which all distances to London are measured. Long since, the cross erected by Edward I in 1290 (as a tribute to his wife, Eleanor) has been replaced by a statue of Charles I atop a horse.

The major construction was completed in 1845 and has enjoyed continual popularity since - sometimes to the regret of its sponsors. The large open piazza-style area is often the preferred site of political demonstrations, and has been from its beginning.

Like most museums in London, The British Museum is free of admission (though some events and special exhibitions have an admission charge). But were it the most expensive attraction in the city, it would be worth the price. Often rated the number one tourist attraction, it houses millions of artifacts from around the world and through history.

Beginning with the collection that branched off to the Natural History Museum, for over 250 years the institution has offered viewers a chance to see history up close in large and small.

Shakespeare's Globe Theatre is in fact long gone - closed by Puritans in 1642 and taken down 2 years later. Fortunately for fans of the bard, there's a faithful reproduction housed only a few hundred meters from the original site.

The consuming passion of too-little known American actor Sam Wanamaker, the Globe offers performances of Shakespeare's plays during the summer along with tours of the facility. Wanamaker died shortly after construction began.

Much of London, for the tourist anyway, is historical. Ancient buildings and centuries old monuments. Palaces and works of art from the ages. But not Harrods. Harrods, even while its origins are from over 150 years ago, is as up-to-date as the latest computer.

The world's greatest department store was established on its current site in 1849 by Charles Henry Harrod, a wholesale grocer. Harrod's son Charles Digby rapidly grew the business and by 1880 employed 100 staff.

Kensington Palace has been home to royalty from long before Queen Victoria's birth there in 1819 to Princess Diana's residence until her death to today.

Still in use as a working Royal Residence, there are nonetheless many areas open to public viewing - and have been since Queen Victoria opened the State Apartments to the public in 1899.

The Red Saloon, for example, on the Garden Floor was the location of Queen Victoria's first Privy Council in June, 1837 and has been restored to its original appearance.

Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum is one of the very few attractions in London that is both centuries old and completely modern.

Madame Tussaud learned her unusual craft of modeling figures in wax by creating death masks of those executed by guillotine in 18th and 19th century France. Among her 'clients' were Louis XVI and Marie Antionette. That mixture of precise art and macabre display is reflected in the modern museum - but with a much greater sense of fun!

To most, the question "What time is it?" is mundane. But to the men and women whom, over the centuries since 1675, have worked at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich it is of huge importance.

Evolving from an era when, in 1386 at the Salisbury Cathedral, the time was measured in quarters of an hour indicated by the gong of a bell, the atomic clocks of today are precise to one second in a million years. Fortunately for visitors to Greenwich, approximately 23 minutes east of Big Ben, dozens of artifacts from everything in between those extremes has been preserved.