Kensington and Knightsbridge

If you live in this area, the rent on your flat is probably very high - it is an exclusive part of London where you can find many foreign embassies, large, glamorous hotels, and the department store that is the symbol of expensive and high-class living - Harrods.

People say you can buy anything in Harrods, including wild animals - they even have a zoo which will sell you lion cubs as well as more common pets such as dogs, cats or parrots. Harrods succeeded in supplying one customer with a baby elephant, although it had to be ordered specially!

Harrods is not the only attraction here; there is the Albert Hall, where there is a festival of popular classical music concerts every summer known as 'the Proms'. Sporting events such as tennis tournaments and boxing matches are also held there.

Museums

Three of London's most interesting museums - the Victoria and Albert, the Science Museum and the Natural History Museum - are also in this area. The last, as its name suggests, has exhibits of birds, animals and reptiles as well as life-size reconstructions of prehistoric animals. The Victoria and Albert was founded with the aim of improving design in British manufacturing, but over the years it has expanded to include things from almost every place and period, including costumes from the theatre, and paintings. Finally there is the Science Museum, which is always crowded and is certainly the noisiest museum in London. It covers every aspect of science and technology, and the collections are constantly being moved round to make room for new acquisitions. They have inventions that did not become popular, such as the steam bicycle of 1912, and technological landmarks like the Cody biplane - the first aircraft to fly in England in 1912. In many of the rooms there are machines and computers that visitors can work themselves.

Susan Sheerin, Jonathan Seath, Gillian White: Spotlight on Britain; Oxford University Press, 1985, page 28