Holborn and Inns of Court

Traditionally the area of journalists and lawyers. There are several buildings prior to the Great Fire (Staple Inn, Prince Henry's Room and indoor Middle Temple Hall)

Sites to visit:

• Sir John Soane's Museum (son of a bricklayer, he became one of the main British architects of the 19th century
  
• Lincoln's Inn
• Lincoln's Inn Fields
• Old Curiosity Shop (it might have given its name to Dicken's novel; 17th century building and the oldest shop in central London. It survived the Great Fire)
  
• Law Society (architectural interesting building)
  
• Saint Clement Danes Church (there is a big chain hanging from the wall to stop people opening the tombs and stealing dead bodies to be sold in hospitals and be used in medicine lessons in old times)
• Royal Courts of Justice
• Temple Bar Memorial (It marks the entrance to The City; in ceremonies the King stops in front of it and asks the Town Hall Mayor for permission to go into the City.
  
• Fleet Street (here one found the first printer in England; Shakespeare and Ben Johnson -again the writer, not the athlete- were customers in Old Mitre Tavern)
  
• Prince Henry's Room
• Temple
• Saint Bride's (One of Wren's; many journalists and printers buried in it; the cript contains remains of previous temples and a fragment of a Roman road)
  
• Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese (clients of this tavern: Samuel Pepys -the journalist of the Great Fire-, Dr. Samuel Johnson, Mark Twain, Charles Dickens)
  
• Dr. Johnson's House
• Saint Andrew Church
  
• Holborn Viaduct
• Saint Etheldreda's Chapel
• Hatton Garden (street of diamonds and jewelry)
  
• Staple Inn
• London Silver Vaults
• Gray's Inn (Shakespeare and Charles Dickens)
  

Bloomsbury and Fitzrovia

Bloomsbury and Fitzrovia have been synonims of literature, art and erudition. The Bloomsbury artists and writers were active till 1930's. The name Fitzrovia was invented by Dylan Thomas, who was a client in the Fitzroy Tavern.

Sites to visit:

• British Museum
• Bloomsbury Square (Virginia Woolf and friends lived there)
• Saint George Church
• Russell Square (one of the biggest squares in London; you can find the best Victorian hotel, the Russel Hotel; the poet T.S. Elliot worked in the western corner of the square)
• Queen Square (George III stayed in a doctor's house who tried to cure him from a hereditary illness which drove him to madness and death)
• Charles Dickens Museum (he lived in here for 3 very productive years)
• Foundling Museum ( Captain Thomas Coram tried to give abandoned children housing and schooling. His friend William Hogarth gave him many pictures and he created the first art gallery in Britain, to invite rich people to his hospital and hope they left donations for the children)
• British Library
• Saint Pancras International
• Saint Pancras Parish Church (the outside looks very much like the Acropolis in Athens)
  
• Woburn Walk
• Pecival David Foundation for Chinese Art
• Fitzroy Square
• Fitzroy Tavern (famous clients: Dylan Thomas, George Orwell and Augustus John)
  
• Charlotte Street
• Pollock's Toy Museum
  

Covent Garden and the Strand

Sites to see:

• The Piazza and Central Market
• Saint Paul's Church
• London's Transport Museum
• Theatre Museum
• Theatre Royal Drury Lane
• Royal Opera House
• Neal Street and Neal's Yard (19th century shops)
• Thomas Neal's (commercial centre)
• Seven Dials (column with 6 clocks in the crossing of 7 streets)
• Lamb and Flag (pub from the 16th century)
• Photographers' Gallery
• Adelphy Theatre
• Savoy Hotel
• Savoy Chapel (the Queen's private chapel; it was the hospital's chapel in Henry VII's era; part of its walls date back to 1512)
• Somerset House
• Saint-Mary-le-Strand
• Roman Baths (which are not Roman)
• Bush House (BBC World Service premises; nothing to do with George Bush or his dad)
• Victoria Embankment Gardens
• Adelphi
• Charing Cross (the name comes from the last of the 12 crosses raised by Edward I to mark his wife's, Leonor from Castille, funeral route)
• London Coliseum (the biggest theatre in London and the first to have lifts in Europe)

Soho and Trafalgar Square

Famous as the entertainment area of town since its creation in the 12th century. Throughout its first hundred years, it was a very elegant area and its inhabitants held eccentric parties. It has become a multicultural suburb, famous for its Chinatown.

Sites to see:

• Trafalgar Square
• Admiralty Arch
• National Gallery
• Saint Martin-in-the-Fields (model of a church for United States; famous people are buried there -eg Charles's II lover Nell Gynne, the painters William Hogarth andJoshua Reynolds)
• National Portrait Gallery (it shows British history through the portraits of poets, kings and Queens, musicians, philosophers, heroes and villains)
• Leiscester Square (with Charles Chaplin's statue and Shakespeare's fountain)
• Theatre Royal Haymarket
• Shaftesbury Avenue (the theatre and cinema street; Count Shaftesbury opened this avenue between 1877 and 1886 to improve communications to the West End through a very poor suburb; he improved the lives of the poor of the area)
• Chinatown
• Charing Cross (bookshop street)
• Palace Theatre (the only architectural interesting theatre; it belongs to Andrew Lloyd Webber)
• Soho Square
• Berwick Street Market (veg & fuit street market since 1840)
• Carnaby Street (the Oxford dictionary accepts Carnaby as a synonym of "fashionable clothes for young people")