London Hotels

The City of London is a little area within Greater London, England. It is the momentous core of London around which the modern conurbation grew and has held city status since time immemorial. The City’s borders have remained almost unchanged since the Middle Ages, and it is now only a tiny part of the metropolis of London. It is frequently referred to as the City or the Square Mile, as it is just over one square mile (1.12 mile²/2.9km²) in area. These conditions are also often used as metonymies for the United Kingdom’s financial services industry, which has historically been based here.

In the period of medieval, the City was the full extent of London. The phrase London now refers to a much larger conurbation roughly corresponding to Greater London, a local government area which includes 32 London boroughs as well as the City of London, which is not one of the 32 London boroughs. The home authority for the City, the City of London Corporation, is unique in the United Kingdom, and has some unusual responsibilities for a local authority in Britain, such as being the police authority for the City. It also has responsibilities and ownerships ahead of the City’s boundaries. The Corporation is headed by the Lord Mayor of the City of London, a split (and much older) office to the Mayor of London.

The City is today a most important business and financial centre, ranking on a par with New York City as the leading centre of global finance accessible to all through cheap airline tickets. In the 19th century, the City served as the world’s primary business centre. The City has a local population of approximately 8,000, but around 340,000 people work there, mainly in the financial services sector. The legal profession form a most important component of the western side of the City, in and around the Inns of Court, of which two - the Inner and Middle Temples - fall within the City of London boundary.

Gardens are maintained by the Corporation inside the City. These varieties from formal gardens such as the one in Fins bury Circus, containing a bowling green and bandstand, to churchyards such as one belonging to the church of St Olave Hart Street, entered from Seething Lane. Gardens included here are Barber-Surgeon’s Hall Garden - London Wall, Cleary Garden - Queen Victoria Street, Fins bury Circus - Blomfield Street or London Wall or Moorgate, Jubilee Garden - Hounds ditch, Portsoken Street Garden - Portsoken Street or Goodman’s Yard, Postman’s Park - Alders gate or King Edward Street, Seething Lane Garden - Seething Lane, St Dunstan-in-the-East - St Dunstan’s Hill or Idol Lane, St Mary Aldermanbury - Aldermanbury, the churchyard of St Olave Hart Street - Seething Lane, St Paul’s Churchyard - St Paul’s Cathedral, West Smithfield Garden - West Smithfield, Whittington Gardens - College Street or Upper Thames Street. One of the extra unusual hotels was the Unborn Yacht, a floating hotel by the Excel centre in East London and constructed specifically for that purpose (it had no engine).

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Travel London was a bus operator in London which was initially a subsidiary of the National Express Group. In the year May 2009 the company was sold to Ned Railways. In the year October 2009, it was rebranded as Abellio. Travel London came into survival in its current guise when National Express bought Connex Bus (established in UK in 1996, a division of French owned transport corporation Connex) in 2004. Paradoxically has taken over an existing operator Limebourne Buses which had actually taken over the original Travel London when that was sold. In 2005 NEG expanded again with the takeover of the London Bus operations of Telling-Golden Miller as well as 15 Surrey County Council contracts. Travel London is the sister corporation of Travel West Midlands and Travel Dundee.

Next the acquisitions of Limebourne, Connex Bus, Telling-Golden Miller, Wings Buses and Link-Line, Travel London had a wide operating area within Greater London and Surrey. The corporation operated contracts on behalf of Transport for London (TfL), Surrey County Council, and Kingston University. Operations are dividing between three registered companies. From early on September 2007, the Surrey routes operated from by fleet under the Travel London (West) license depot were re-branded as Travel Surrey. On 11 November 2007, National Express Group announced tactics to re-brand their UK bus service companies under the National Express identity. The innovative name National Express London was meant to have be unveiled in 2008, however the plans never materialized before the sale.

In year February 2009 there were news reports speculating that the National Express Group were in negotiation to sell Travel London to Singapore based ComfortDelGro Corporation, the parent company of Metro line, which has substantial London Buses contracts in North and West London. Assumption continued fuelled by the fact Travel London won some significant TfL route contracts, which could have been gained on a low price with the idea the buyer would have to run the routes. In the year May 2009, it was announced that National Express Group had agreed to sell Travel London to Ned Railways, a subsidiary of NS Dutch Railways, for a price of £32 million. The deal includes 66 bus routes in total, 36 TfL tendered services in London and 30 Surrey County Council and Kingston University routes. All vehicles and premises used were sold, and all staff will transfer to Ned Railways.

Several other large hotels were built in London in the Victorian period. The Langham Hotel was the biggest in the city when it opened in 1865. The Savoy, perhaps London’s most well-known hotel, opened in 1889, the first London hotel with en-suite bathrooms to every room. Nine years later Claridge’s was rebuilt in its current form. One more famous hotel, the Ritz, based on its even more celebrated namesake in Paris, opened in 1906.The upper end of the London hotel business continued to grow between the two World Wars, boosted by the fact that many landowning families could no longer afford to maintain a London house and therefore began to stay at hotels instead, and by an increasing number of foreign visitors, especially Americans.

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Is there any place better in the whole wide world—or at least in Europe, to go for a fishing holidays? We’d be hard-pressed to find a better place, since the small United Kingdom province features no fewer than seven thousand miles of coastline and over six thousand lochs. Lochs are local lakes, whose size ranges from the very small to the seemingly endless. They beautify Scottish landscapes, are surrounded in the aura of mystery and legend and are bountiful in terms of fish, to say the least. There are so many species of fish available in Scotland that the most difficult part of planning your trip will be to decide what kind of catch you want to come back home with. Is it fresh water salmon? Sea salmon? Sea trout? Arctic char? Ferrox trout? Brown trout? Graylings, pikes, perches and chubbs are all readily available on Scottish realms. What you need to do before you set off is decide what type of fish you want to catch, get your gear ready, then make the trip with the conviction that virtually any area of Scotland will offer you some of the best fishing experiences possible in the world.

Salmon East Rivers

Eastern Scotland is the best place in the region to go fishing for salmon. As most of the rivers in the region have been bought out of drift nets over the past few years, they have managed to become productive once more, with their stock of fish replenished. As the fish’s natural habitat has improved, and continues to do so to this day, stocking has increased. There are stocked waters for trout and salmon on the one hand, as well as wild brownies and sea trout which can be caught at large, in sea waters. The best season to go trout fishing in Eastern Scotland is from the month of May onwards. Over the winter, the fish need to replenish their stock and successfully survive the oft harsh winter weather. There are plenty of wonderful accommodation opportunities in the area, as well, making East Scotland’s lochs and rivers some of the best fishing venues available in Europe.

Fishing in the Northern Highlands

It’s definitely no coincidence that Prince Charles himself can be spotted fishing on Helmsdale in the Northern Highlands, yet this is not the only great place to engage in such activities in the area. You can also choose from the Rivers Borgies, Naver, Strathy, Thurso, Wick, Shin, Oykel, Carron, Beauly, Berriedale and Brora. Rainbow trout, brown char and other species available for fly fishing can be abundantly found in the area. Nowadays, there are also private lochs and commercial fisheries, which make fishing for leisure an all-the-more diverse experience than before.

The Bountiful Waters of the West

The areas of the western and northern Highlands with the best spate rivers and lochs for trout and salmon fishing are Caithness and Sutherland. A self-catering holiday here is sure to go down in family history as one of the most rewarding and intense bonding experiences; alternatively, for added comfort and pampering, you can choose to stay at one of the many classical hotels in the region, such as the Altnaharra Hotel. Many tourist accommodation facilities will offer services especially targeted at amateur fishermen. There is now a wealth of sea trout in local rivers, as recent replenishment and habitat reconstruction efforts appear to have been a success.

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