Some interesting facts about London...

• London is the world's most popular city tourism destination attracting over 27 million overnight visitors annually.

• St Paul 's Cathedral took only 35 years to build, from 1675-1710.

• There are over 6000 restaurants in London representing 53 different styles of cuisine.

• The main bell of Big Ben rings 78 times during every twelve-hour cycle.

• The London Eye can carry 15,000 visitors a day. This is enough to fill Concorde 160 times over.

• The average visitor to London in 2003 spent £83 a day.

• Every tube train travels the equivalent of London to Sydney (10,500 miles) seven times every year.

• 1700 tons of steel were used in the creation of the London Eye. That is enough steel to make more than 250 double decker buses.

• Notting hill Carnival is the second largest carnival in the world behind Rio de Janeiro.

• The Houses of Parliament has 1,000 rooms, 100 staircases, 11 courtyards, eight bars, and six restaurants - none of them open to the public. The Palace of Westminster was sited by the river so it could not be totally surrounded by a mob.

• The Inner and Outer dome of St. Paul's Cathedral is the second biggest dome in the world, standing at 360 ft (110 m) high, only after St. Peter's in Rome.

• The Big Ben bell weighs 13 tons.

• The name Big Ben is not actually the name of the clock tower but instead that of the bell inside the tower. It is named after Sir Benjamin Hall, a portly politician of the time who was also the Parliamentary Commissioner of Works.

• In 1952 a double decker bus had to leap from one side of Tower Bridge to the other after the Bridge began to rise with the bus still on it.
• The Tower of London is home to 7 ravens and legend has it that if these ravens ever fly away the Tower will collapse and the monarchy will fall.

• The door at No.10 Downing Street only opens from the inside.

• The Millennium Dome is one of only two man made structures (the other being the Great Wall Of China) that is visible from Space.