Covent Garden

London, United Kingdom

Contributed by Project for Public Spaces

The best "festival marketplace" in the world.

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02/25/04 Richard Skaff said:

I just love the vibration caused by cobblestones when I roll over them in my wheelchair. The pain they cause keeps me awake so I won't miss any of the beautiful views!

03/28/05 Kate Spaulding said:

Convent Gardens has all of the stores of Oxford Street/Circus without as many people. Still gets extremely crowded though, which causes quite of few of those creepy costume people (that dress up and paint themselves and expect money in return) to bother you while you're walking around. The shopping is good and it is within walking distance of other great London areas like Leicester Square, Soho, and Piccadilly Circus. For the My Fair Lady fans out there, Covent Garden is where Eliza Doolittle does her flower selling.

04/06/05 Mary Sz said:

We just returned from a trip to London during the Easter holidays and Covent Garden was packed with tourists from all over the world. This is a wonderfully-preserved (although too commercialized for my taste) place to wander around in. The nearby Theatre and London Transport Museums that adjoin it are both well worth a visit.

Tourist-magnets like Covent Garden also provide an unintended urban function; by drawing in large numbers of tourists, they keep other areas of the city (even those streets relatively close by) undisturbed. Londoners can detour around the Covent Garden area and get on with their regular business.