Colourful England [antikvár]

London is far more than the eapital of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and one of the largest eities in tlie world: she has an in-definable character and charm of her own. In this great historic city the modern rubs shoulders with the old, the great and the small live side by side in pleasant harmonv, and in every part of London's complex and busy life there is to be found a very genuine affection for her traditions, her fortunes and her prosperity. Today the face of London is changing. Everywhere great new blocks of offices and apartments are climbing towards the sky. Victorian and pre-war facades are giving way to the bold lines of modern architecture, old streets are being widened and new ones construc-ted. Yet essentially London retains her personality; the 'Beef-eaters' still guard the Tower, the guard is still changed daily in the forecourt of Buckingham Palace and the cheerful Cockney still epitomises the unquenchable spirit of the eapital.South-east England broadly comprises the counties of Surrey, Kent, East and West Sussex, Hampshire, Buckinghamshire and Hertfordshire and those parts of Essex and Berkshire lying within the London commuter beit. The North Downs, extending aeross Surrey into Kent, and the South Downs, which reach from Hampshire into Sussex, are the salient features of the south of this region. Between the two chalk masses lies the Weald, a great bowl once covered with dense forest but today is rich in orchards, hopfields and markét gardens. Hampshire contains writhin its boundaries the old cathedral city of Winchester, the great naval base of Portsmouth and the country's leading passenger port of South-ampton. The coasts of Sussex and Kent are graced by a delightful succession of holiday resorts enjoying an equable climate. To the north of the Thames basin, with its many delightful riverside townships, rise the Chiltern Hills, cradling the Vale of Aylesbury. Hertfordshire, Buckinghamshire and Surrey, away from the London suburban area, are predominantly rural counties with many unspoiled villages and pleasant wroodlands.