The Suitcase Diaries: Covent Garden & Harrods

Covent Garden is a district in London on the eastern fringes of the West End, between St. Martins Lane and Drury Lane. It is associated with the former fruit and vegetable market in the central square, now a popular shopping and tourist site, and the Royal Opera House, which is also known as "Covent Garden". The district is divided by the main thoroughfare of Long Acre, north of which is given over to independent shops centred on Neals Yard and Seven Dials, while the south contains the central square with its street performers and most of the elegant buildings, theatres and entertainment facilities, including the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane and the London Transport Museum.

Though mainly fields until the 16th century, the area was briefly settled when it became the heart of the Anglo-Saxon trading town of Lundenwic. After the town was abandoned, part of the area was walled off by 1200 for use as arable land and orchards by Westminster Abbey, and was referred to as "the garden of the Abbey and Convent". The land, now called "the Covent Garden", was seized by Henry VIII, and granted to the Earls of Bedford in 1552. The 4th Earl commissioned Inigo Jones to build some fine houses to attract wealthy tenants. Jones designed the Italianate arcaded square along with the church of St. Pauls. The design of the square was new to London, and had a significant influence on modern town planning, acting as the prototype for the laying-out of new estates as London grew. A small open-air fruit and vegetable market had developed on the south side of the fashionable square by 1654. Gradually, both the market and the surrounding area fell into disrepute, as taverns, theatres, coffee-houses and brothels opened up; the gentry moved away, and rakes, wits and playwrights moved in. By the 18th century it had become a well-known red-light district, attracting notable prostitutes. An Act of Parliament was drawn up to control the area, and Charles Fowler's neo-classical building was erected in 1830 to cover and help organise the market. The area declined as a pleasure ground as the market grew and further buildings were added: the Floral Hall, Charter Market, and in 1904 the Jubilee Market. By the end of the 1960s traffic congestion was causing problems, and in 1974 the market relocated to the New Covent Garden Market about three miles (5 km) south-west at Nine Elms. The central building re-opened as a shopping centre in 1980, and is now a tourist location containing cafes, pubs, small shops, and a craft market called the Apple Market, along with another market held in the Jubilee Hall.

Harrods is an upmarket department store located in Brompton Road in Knightsbridge, in the Royal Burough of Kensignton and Chelsea, London.

The store occupies a 5-acre (20,000 m²) site and has over one million square feet (90,000 m²) of selling space in over 330 departments making it the biggest department store in Europe. The UK's second-biggest shop, Selfridges, Oxford street, is a little over half the size with 540,000 square feet (50,000 m²) of selling space.

The Harrods motto is Omnia Omnibus Ubique—All Things for All People, Everywhere. Several of its departments, including the seasonal Christmas department and the Food Halls, are world famous.

I would love to say when we move to England I am only going to shop at Harrods, but along with the Lotto I will need to win a few times to afford the apartment in Kensington I will have to rob a couple of banks to support a Harrods shopping lifestyle.

A wonderful experience and a must see for everyone, I have never seen a "department store" in a more elaborate building.