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THE CITY is where London began. Long established as the financial district, it stretches from Temple Bar in the west to the Tower of London in the east - administrative boundaries that are only slightly larger than those marked by the Roman walls and their medieval successors. However, in this Square Mile (as the City is sometimes called), you'll find few leftovers of London's early days, since four-fifths of the area burned down in the Great Fire of 1666. Rebuilt in brick and stone, the City gradually lost its centrality as London swelled westwards, though it has maintained its position as Britain's financial heartland. What you see now is mostly the product of three fairly recent phases: the Victorian construction boom of the late nineteenth century; the postwar reconstruction following the Blitz; and the money-grabbing frenzy of the Thatcherite 1980s, in which nearly fifty percent of the City's office space was rebuilt. When you consider what has happened here, it's amazing that so much has survived to pay witness to the City's two-thousand-year history. Wren's spires still punctuate the skyline here and there, and his masterpiece, St Paul's Cathedral , remains one of London's geographical pivots. At the eastern edge of the City, the Tower of London still stands protected by some of the best-preserved medieval fortifications in Europe. Other relics, such as the City's few surviving medieval alleyways, Wren's Monument to the Great Fire, and London's oldest synagogue and church, are less conspicuous, and even locals have problems finding the more modern attractions of the Museum of London and the Barbican arts complex. Perhaps the biggest change of all, though, has been in the City's population. Up until the eighteenth century the majority of Londoners lived and worked in or around the City; nowadays 300,000 commuters spend the best part of Monday to Friday here, but only 5000 people remain at night and at weekends. The result of this demographic shift is that the City is fully alive only during office hours. This means that by far the best time to visit is during the week, since many pubs, restaurants and even some tube stations and tourist sights close down at the weekend.
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