Places to visit in Great Britain.
Great Britain is rich in world-famous places. A lot of people from all over the world come every year to visit them.
Stratford-upon-Avon is a small town. Its chief points of interest are associated with Shakespeare, the greatest English poet and playwright. The Royal Shakespeare Theatre was opened in Stratford in 1932. Only Shakespeare's plays are performed here.
Edinburgh is a city where the historic past lives side by side with the present. Edinburgh Castle is the most famous building in the city. Edinburgh is especially famous for its festivals. In summer there is the Edinburgh Festival. This is Britain's biggest arts festival.
Cambridge and Oxford Universities are famous centres of learning.
There is a prehistoric monument in Great Britain which is as interesting to the tourists as the Egyptian pyramids. This is Stonehenge. This ancient circle of stones stands in Southwest England. It measures 80 m. across and made with massive blocks of stone up to four m. high. Why it was built is a mystery.
London is most famous with its places to visit.
Hyde Park is the London's largest and most fashionable park. It was once a royal hunting forest.
The Natural Museum is situated in Kensington and is one of London's greatest museums. There is a huge collection of animals and plants, including a quarter of a million butterflies, a blue whale and the famous dinosaur skeletons.
The famous Waxworks Madame Tussaunds Museum has the models of famous people from pop stars to prime ministers, displays of battles and a Chamber of Horror.
The Royal Observatory, Greenwich is situated 10 miles outside London on a hill above the River Thames. The Observatory contains telescopes and displays about astronomy, including Halley's Comet and Black Holes.
The Tower of London is the London's oldest building. Since it was built by William the Conqueror in the 11th century, this castle has been a Royal palace, a prison, a place of execution, a zoo, the Royal Mint, and an observatory. Traitor's Gate has steps leading down to the River Thames. Countless prisoners, including the future Queen Elizabeth I of England, were brought to the Tower by barge and ascended the steps before being imprisoned. For many it was their last moment of freedom before their death. But Elizabeth was released from the Tower and became Queen. The King's second wife, Anne Boleyn, was brought to trial there in 1536 and beheaded. Six years later her cousin, Catherine, Henry VIII's fifth wife, suffered the same fate. Sir Thomas More was beheaded there in 1535. Today it's a museum and houses the Crown Jewels.
Of course, no visit to the Tower would be complete without seeing the ravens; huge black birds who are an official part of the Tower community. Legend states that if the ravens were to leave the Tower the Crown will fall, and Britain with it. Under the special care of the Raven Master, the ravens are fed a daily diet of raw meat. And there is no danger of them flying away, because their wings are clipped.
In The Sherlock Holmes' Museum you step back a hundred years in time. You have a feeling as if the great detective had just left the room for a moment with Dr. Watson, and Mrs. Hudson is somewhere in the backrooms, and you'll see her entering the room with a tray of tea cups. Everything in the museum reminds us of the stories we know so well. It is filled with things which Holmes and Watson would have had — Holmes' violin, his deerstalker and pipe, the Persian slipper in which he kept his tobacco, unanswered letters pinned to the wall with a knife, his magnifying glass... Dr. Watson's diary contains hand-written notes and extracts from "The Hound of the Baskervilles".
Buckingham Palace is one of the most famous Palace's in the world and is the official London residence for H.M Queen Elizabeth II as well as being used extensively by other members of the royal family. Queen Victoria was the first to make the Palace the official residence of the Sovereign. The colorful ceremony of the Changing of the Guard before the Palace is of great interest for visitors. The Guardsmen in their red coats and bearskin caps march behind the Drum Major and the Band. A number of other ceremonies also take place, such as the Kings or Queen's receptions and the State Opening of Parliament.
The Trafalgar Square is the geographical centre of London. It was named in memory of Admiral Nelson's victory in the battle of Trafalgar in 1805. The tall Nelson's Column stands in the middle of the square.
The National Gallery in Trafalgar Square has one of the best picture collection in the world. It has the most valuable display of French paintings from the early of the Impressionists, and, of course, the finest English painting, with Gainsborough, Turner, Constable and others. It shows the progress of Italian painting from the medieval to the Renaissance, some outstanding pictures of the old Roman masters. It also has a great variety of Dutch and Flemish masters and an excellent choice of Spanish painters. There are great treasures dispersed in private collections all over the world. The Queen's collection is the most valuable among them.
Nearly all English kings and queens have been crowned in Westminster Abbey. Many outstanding statesmen, scientists, writers, poets, and painters are buried here: Newton, Darwin, Chaucer, Dickens, Tennyson, Kipling, etc.
The British Museum is the largest and richest museum in the world. It was founded in 1753 and contains one of the world's richest collections of antiquities. The Egyptian Galleries contain human and animal mummies. Some parts of Athens' Parthenon are in the Greek section.