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City
of London Walks:
A Christmas
Carol
Carol singer, 1898 |
Robin, 1898 |
Church bells, 1898 |
This walk, timed to coincide with the release of
the Disney film celebrating Charles Dickens famous Christmas story, will visit
the Dickens sites in the City and enjoy the City's celebration of Christmas. In
Dickens description of the City on Christmas morning:
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The poulterers' shops
were still half open, and the fruiterers' were radiant in their
glory. There were great, round , pot-bellied baskets of
chestnuts, shaped like the waistcoats of jolly old gentlemen,
lolling at the doors, and tumbling out into the street in their
apoplectic opulence. There were ruddy, brown-faced,
broad-girthed Spanish Onions, shining in the fatness of their
growth like Spanish Friars, and winking from their shelves in
wanton slyness at the girls as they went by, and glanced demurely
at the hung-up mistletoe. There were pears and apples,
clustered high in blooming pyramids, there were bunches of grapes,
made in the shopkeepers' benevolence to dangle from conspicuous
hooks, that peoples' mouths might water gratis as they passed and
yellow oranges and lemons in the great compactness of their juicy
persons, urgently entreating and beseeching to be carried home in
paper bags and eaten after dinner.
In the Grocers the raisins were so
plentiful and rare, the almonds so extremely white, the stick of
cinnamon so long and straight, the candied fruits so caked and
spotted with molten sugar , and everything was good to eat and in
its Christmas dress. |
The walk is being led at 11am
every day from 3 November 2009 to 3 January 2010 by City guides, and by
Susan Gane on 7 and 16 November and 4 December. We meet at the City Information Centre in St Paul's Churchyard
and the walk will last one and half to
two hours. The cost is £6 per person, £4 concessions, with accompanied children
under twelve free of charge.
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