This is London

Soot, smoke, fog, rain, the sky is like a wet sheet... The second part of Miroslav Šašek's series of illustrated guides to the world's metropolises takes us to London: the British metropolis, which was already a marketplace full of shops and merchants during the Roman Empire. Today it is rather a pulsating center of banks and businessmen and a huge number of people of many nationalities.

A walk around London with Miroslav Šašek is still fun today: the tense faces of City merchants, street performers, taxis, buses, guardsmen, speakers in Hyde Park, a view of museum exhibits and Christopher Wren's buildings and people - in skirts and trousers, with wigs and in hats with a plume, war veterans, milkmen, sweepers, salesmen, policemen, tourists... A city that is always in motion and at the same time royally solid.

And how did Miroslav Šašek sum it up with a smile? "And at the very end of the picture book about London, we still have to mention one faithful friend - the umbrella." London has certainly changed, but because Miroslav Šašek was able to capture its true heart in every city, his guide is still useful and is in lots of fun little tidbits that get lost on the internet.

It is not for nothing that the English version of This is London is displayed in every London bookshop as "BritishClassics". And it was not for nothing that Šašek's first publisher was a London publishing house.