What struck me most about London was its deep sense of history. There is a saying I heard several times there: "In the US, you think 200 years is a long time; in the UK, we think 200 kilometers is a long distance". Virtually every street has its historic markers or its centuries-old buildings, going all the way back to Roman times. Combine that with the old imperial sense of showing off its domination of the political and natural world, and you get some of the best museums to be found anywhere.
Roman statue, perhaps of Trajan, at the old Roman Wall. Near the Tower of London.
The Roman Wall. All that remains of the Roman town of Londinium.
The White Tower, Tower of London. Built by Billy the Bastard (also known as William the Conqueror) in 1067 to consolidate his hold over Britain.
Henry VIII's jousting armor. Note the exaggerated codpiece. Tower of London museum.
Executioner's block. Tower of London.
Tower Guard.
Tower fortifications, with arrow slits.
The Prince Albert Memorial.
The iconic London double-decker bus.
And the iconic red telephone booth. Sorry, Dr Who fans, I didn't see any blue police call boxes.
World War One memorial, London. Every town and village in England has its World War One memorial and graveyard.
A London street.
Another street scene in London.
One of the many parks in London.
The Big Ben clock tower, Parliament building.
The London Eye, on the Thames River.
An anti-war protest camp near Buckingham Palace.
HMS Belfast, a World War Two cruiser docked in the Thames River as a floating museum.
The Map Room in the underground War Cabinet shelter used by Winston Churchill during the Second World War. Built underneath Whitehall, the bunker had bombproof steel-and-cement roofs and walls.
The Thames River.
Buckingham Palace.
Westminster Abbey.
Bomb damage from The Blitz.
Lord Nelson's Column, Trafalgar Square.
The Mars probe "Beagle". London Museum of Science.
The Museum of Natural History.
The rotunda. The columns mimic the bark of extinct trees. The building itself is a work of art.
Chuckie Darwin and me.
A plesiosaur skeleton collected by Mary Anning.
Coelacanth caught off the coast of Africa.
An ancient rhinoceros.
A statue of Nelson Mandela.
Statue of Abraham Lincoln. Oddly enough, there was no statue of George Washington.
Kensington garden.
Kensington Park
Tower Bridge. Often mistakenly called "London Bridge" by Americans.