The Thames is London` s most civilized thoroughfare. Choose your stretch of river wisely, and it is as chic as Savile Row or Bond Street, as important in the history of the nation as Whitehall or Westminster, as elegant as St James or Mayfair, and as full of literary associations as Bloomabury or Hampstead. Of course it is much more than that too, for it is the very reason that London is here at all. The Romans chose to establish Londinium at the furthest bridgeable point downstream, close to the site of the present-day London Bridge, and so the city` s near-2000-year history began.
Today` s visitor can immediately recognise the enormous importance of the Thames—for centuries a source of food, drainage, trade, civilization and potential invasion-by the buildings that line both banks of the river. But it is not simply the fortification of the Tower of London or the opulence of Hampton Court that impresses, rather the fact that so many buildings of note are on or by the river. As you journey up or down the majestic waterway, you pass within feet of the history of one of the world` s greatest cities.