The afternoon’s journey across London Bridge could not have highlighted the contrast with Florence more. In seething traffic passing Fishmongers’ Hall, the coach moved forward through swarms of people and animals driven into the city for s*******r, in tunnels beneath grand houses, many five storeys high, out onto open stretches between semi-derelict buildings looking ready to tumble into the river. More fine houses and then across at last, through the stone gatehouse, its spikes topped with the bleached skulls of traitors long dead, and out into Southwark.
We moved slowly with other carriages, avoiding the milling crowds of hawkers and cockle-sellers, weaving amongst cargo sheds, some built out on stilts over the river with overhanging upper stories added one atop the other. Soon, the pun
