London

London is less a single city than a run of villages that grew into one another, each with its market, its pub and its own crowd. History stacks up here rather than clears out: the White Tower at the heart of the Tower of London was begun in 1078, St Paul's Cathedral rose from the ruins of the 1666 fire, and Tate Modern took over a dead power station on the south bank. The great collections cost nothing, from the British Museum and the National Gallery to the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Natural History Museum. Royal Observatory Greenwich still marks the line the world sets its clocks by, and Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew keeps the largest living plant collection anywhere. Eating out means the whole world, from Bengali curry houses to a long Sunday roast. Theatre runs from the West End to Shakespeare's Globe, rebuilt in oak and thatch.