The River Thames

Welcome to the Thames, the reason London exists. Two thousand years ago, the Romans chose this spot because the river was wide enough for trade, but narrow enough to bridge. They called the settlement Londinium, and it has grown along this river ever since. The Thames flows for nearly three hundred and fifty kilometres from its source in the Cotswolds to the North Sea, and twice a day the tide rises and falls by up to seven metres in central London. That is why you sometimes see exposed beaches at low tide — and why Londoners have for centuries searched the foreshore for treasure, a hobby called mudlarking. Walk along the South Bank from Westminster to Tower Bridge and you trace the city's whole story: the gothic parliament, the white-stone Somerset House, the rebuilt Globe Theatre, the brick chimney of Tate Modern, the medieval Tower of London, and the soaring towers of the modern City. Bridges punctuate the journey: Westminster, Hungerford, Waterloo, Blackfriars, Millennium, Southwark, London Bridge, Tower. A fun fact: the Thames was so polluted in the nineteenth century that 1858 became known as the Great Stink — a crisis that finally forced London to build its modern sewer system. A practical tip: hop on a Thames Clipper riverboat for a different perspective; the city looks completely different from the water. Whether you walk it, sail it, or simply pause to watch it flow, the Thames is the artery that gives London its rhythm.