2014 - London's dark waters - the River Thames
Diesen Text kannst du nur betrachten, wenn du dein Smartphone quer hältst, da er sonst zu groß ist.
Quer halten funktioniert nicht? Dann:
Der Text ist dann möglicherweise verschoben oder falsch skaliert.
| London´s dark water - the River Thames | |||
| 1 5 10 | Every part of the
Thames tells a story of the city's past. The Tudors skated on it. The Victorians used it as a toilet. And it was the setting of a James Bond boat chase — London's famous river, the Thames. Kings and queens have travelled on it. On Sunday 3rd June 2012, Queen Elizabeth II sailed down the River Thames on a luxury boat, decorated with 10,000 flowers among a majestic flotilla of 1,000 boats to mark her 60 years on the British throne. | ||
15 | Today the river
is a tourist attraction. Along its banks wonderful old palaces,
cathedrals, glass skyscrapers, trendy restaurants and nightclubs can be seen. But the Thames is much more than fun and beauty. Without it, London might not even exist. Some historians believe that the Romans founded Londinium in the year 50 AD be- cause they thought the river would make trade possible. | ||
20 | Over the
centuries, the Thames has gone through many changes. Between 1400 and
1900, while Europe was in the grip of a mini ice age, London got so cold that the river froze over 23 times. In 1536, King Henry VIII went sleigh riding on the ice. Thirty years later, his daughter Elizabeth I took long walks on the frozen river. Later the river played a more serious role. In 1666, the Great Fire of London destroyed thousands of houses and left 100,000 people homeless. Londoners escaped the fire on the river — many of them sitting in boats until it was over. | ||
25 | Less than two
centuries later the river became a stink-bomb, caused by flush toilets.
During the Great Stink of 1858, the government fled the Houses of Parliament as the smell became unbearable during the hot summer. Thousands of people died of disease from the dirty water. | ||
30 1 351 | The name 'Thames'
probably comes from a very old word meaning 'dark water' because of the river's muddy colour. But the Thames is dark in other ways, too. There is a dark, troubled side that some visitors to London do not know about. In the 17th and 18th centuries, the banks of the river at Wapping were known as Execution Dock where murderers and robbers were hanged. The bodies of the most notorious1 pirates were left hanging in metal cages as a warning to others. Around this time the river got its own police force to keep it free from pirates. Pirates are not a problem any more, but the river police still have a hard job fighting crime. | ||
| On your next
visit to London, if you take a walk along the Thames, you might see the
river in a new light. (443 words) | |||
| Adapted from: "Spot on" (5/2011), Spotlight Verlag, Planegg/München | |||
| 1 notorious - berüchtigt | |||