Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
COVENT GARDEN PIAZZA
Covent Garden and the Strand
Covent Garden's transformation from a workaday fruit and vegetable market
into a fashionable
quartier
is one of the most miraculous and successful
developments of the 1980s. More mainstream and commercial than
neighbouring Soho, it's also a lot more popular thanks to the buskers, street
entertainers and human statues that make the tra
c-free Covent Garden
Piazza an undeniably lively place to be. As its name suggests, the Strand, on
the southern border of Covent Garden, once lay along the riverbank until the
Victorians created the Embankment to shore up the banks of the Thames.
One showpiece river palace, Somerset House, remains, its courtyard graced
by a lovely fountain in summer, and its chambers home to the Courtauld
Gallery's superb collection of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings.
