Layers of London: My Walk Through Time

October 14

Dear Journal,

My feet are completely exhausted, but my mind is still racing with everything I saw today! This was our very first full day in London, and I honestly felt like a time traveler bouncing back and forth across two thousand years of history.

We started our morning near an Underground station called Tower Hill. Dad promised me that we would find a piece of ancient Rome hidden right in plain sight. At first, I thought he was joking. We were surrounded by bustling traffic, black cabs, and people rushing to work with coffee cups in their hands. But then we rounded a quiet corner, and there it was—a towering, rugged wall made of rough stones and flat red bricks.

I ran my fingers across the cool, uneven surface. A bronze statue of the Roman Emperor Trajan stood proudly nearby, watching over the courtyard. A bronze information plaque explained that this wall was built around the year 200 CE, back when the city was a Roman settlement called Londinium. It was wild to realize that Roman soldiers had stood in the exact same spot, wearing heavy armor and guarding their fortress from rival tribes nearly two millennia ago.

The strangest part was looking up. Directly behind this crumbling ancient wall rose sleek, shiny glass skyscrapers that seemed to touch the clouds. One building looked just like a giant glass pickle, which Mom told me locals nicknamed "The Gherkin." It felt like standing with one foot in the ancient past and the other foot in the distant future. The old gray stones looked so small and humble compared to the sparkling towers of steel and glass, yet they were the very foundation of this entire giant city.

Later in the afternoon, we hopped onto the top deck of a bright red double-decker bus and traveled down along the River Thames. We walked across the Millennium Bridge, a futuristic steel suspension bridge made just for walkers. Below us, the dark water churned, carrying boats back and forth just as it has for thousands of years. From the middle of the river, I could see the medieval stone battlements of the Tower of London to my left, while across the river, the giant pyramid-shaped skyscraper called The Shard pierced the gray sky.

Before today, I always thought cities were built all at once, like a brand-new LEGO set right out of the box. Now I understand that London is more like a giant scrapbook. Every generation of people has pasted in their own pages—first the Romans, then kings and queens in castle fortresses, and now modern architects building with glass and light.

Dad says tomorrow we are going to see Big Ben and the Natural History Museum. I better get some sleep so I'm ready for another journey through time!