Almost everybody knows Big Ben, the British Museum, Buckingham Palace, and the Tower Bridge. But the secret London which shapes the flair of the capital of the British Empire more than anything else is getting harder and harder to find. This guide elucidates unknown aspects of well-known places, but also explores the London unknown to foreigners and, in part, to natives, and its unique stories. Such as bars with noble origins going back for centuries; listed concrete fortresses; 300 year-old wine shops and synagogues; mosques and Buddhist temples; a tree planted in 1802, the lowest mighty branches of which are no higher than your head; a medieval cemetery for pariahs; a street lantern which has been lit for more than 100 years; the monument to 10,000 Jewish children saved from the Nazis, and one for the Great Fire of 1666; the police den on Trafalgar Square; legal and illegal street art; a crypt in which skulls and bones are arranged in a checkerboard pattern; or the secluded place where Paul McCartney concealed his firm. Unknown London from the Middle Ages until today - brand new. AUTHOR: John Sykes was born in Southport, Lancashire, studied in Oxford and Manchester and lived in London before moving to Germany and making his home in Cologne. He has written and translated books about London, including one in the form of a Sherlock Holmes mystery, and is the author of several travel guides about the British Isles. The photographer Birgit Weber, born in Menden in Germany, studied in Aachen and lives in Cologne. She has provided illustrations and photographs for a number of books, and has edited travel guides to London. For more than 20 years she has regularly visited Britain, and loves London for its cultural diversity and its mix of historical and modern oddities. 115 images
