Day 1 - London for Free: Three Day Tour - page 12

Not what you were expecting? You must be thinking of Tower Bridge . Most people mistake
London and Tower Bridge. Tower Bridge is the well-known bridge seen in the city, but
London Bridge offers the best view of Tower Bridge and has a much more interesting his-
tory.
Old London Bridge was lined with shops, pubs and homes (photo of a model of Old Lon-
don Bridge from the London Bridge Experience below). It was a little town all to itself.
It looked similar to the Ponte Vecchio in Florence, Italy and building on it began in 1176.
There were bridges here prior to this Medieval one, but none with as much history. Old
London Bridge was heavily affected by fires, though not as much by the Great Fire of Lon-
don affected the rest of the city. There were a lot of fires in the city around this time. A fire
in 1633, destroyed a third of the bridge, actually creating a fire break, when the Great Fire
of London in 1666 hit.