London is bigger, dirtier and more crowded than one would imagine from the descriptions in many magazines and books. It has around 8 million inhabitants and sprawls over a huge area, mostly of suburbs where tourists seldom go. The city streets are narrow and often blocked by traffic. Most of the famous buildings are quite far apart, separated by rows of drab, ordinary buildings. We have no public space as impressive as Beijing’s Tian’anmen Square or Paris’ Place de la Concorde, no ceremonial way as grand as Washington’s Pennsylvania Avenue. And in a recent BBC poll, Buckingham Palace was voted one of the ten ugliest buildings in Britain. But an awesome crowed of workers walk over London Bridge every weekday morning on their way to toil in one of the world’s major financial districts, and there is a modern commercial development at Docklands with skyscrapers to rival those in Pudong. We have the largest and finest selection of theaters in the world, recently jointed by a faithful reconstruction of Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre. It is built of wood with a thatched roof and has no electricity, so performances can only take place in summer daylight, as in the Bard’s day.
与人们在阅读了书籍杂志的介绍后而想象出的伦敦相比，伦敦其实更大、更脏，也更拥挤。伦敦有大约800万居民，分布在很大的区域，大部分是游客罕至的郊区。城里的街道很窄，而且常常堵车。那些著名的建筑多数都相距很远，中间隔着一排排单调普通的楼房。那里没有像北京天安门广场或巴黎协和广场那样雄伟的公共场所，也没有像华盛顿宾夕法尼亚大街那样可举行庆典的宽阔街道。在英国广播公司最近所做的一次问卷调查中，白金汉宫被选为全英国最丑陋的十大建筑之一。但是每个工作日的早晨，蜂拥而来的人们走过伦敦桥，到世界上最大的金融中心之一去开始辛勤工作的一天；而在码头区则发展起了现代化的商业区，那里的摩天大楼可与上海的浦东竞相媲美。那里有世界上最大最好的剧院供人们选择，最近又增加了一座专门用于上演莎士比亚戏剧的仿古型“全球剧院”。整个建筑是木架结构，屋顶铺的是茅草，而且里面没有电气设施，因此演出只能在夏季的白天进行。这和诗人莎翁在世时的情况一样。
