Covent Garden

Covent Garden is the only part of London where the street performers have to audition and the residents don't. The market stopped selling vegetables decades ago, though nobody has told the tourists, who still drift round the Piazza hunting for something to buy that isn't a fridge magnet. Living here means stepping round a man juggling knives on your way to get milk, and learning which back streets the theatre crowds never find. The trust that guards the old market pays its rent in one red apple and a posy of flowers, which is the last bargain anyone in Covent Garden will ever get.