A City in the Morning One of the best times to see a great city is early in the morning before the sun has risen. With its shops shut, its normally crowded streets quiet and deserted, it looks as if everyone had left in a hurry leaving all their possessions behind them. A bicycle is propped up against the wall; cars stand idle by the roadside; a page of yesterday’s evening paper flutters noisily down the street, carried here and there by the wind, until it wraps itself round a lamp-post. The streets are marked by an absence of colour. Only in spring and summer do window-boxes stand out gaily from the ledges overhead. In autumn, brown leaves, still untorn by trampling feet, cling to the wet pavements as the trees are slowly stripped of their leaves.

Everything is strangely silent, but it is never completely quiet. The clanking of milk-cans in the distance tells you that the milkman has begun his rounds. A lone dog pads softly past. Footsteps ring down the street. You turn and find that it is a policeman, a road sweeper, or just like yourself, a passer-by. Whoever it is, he will greet you with a friendly ‘Good morning’. At this hour, everyone is friendly. It is still too early for people to rush past in a hurry with strained faces and somewhere to get to. Sometimes you come across a man in evening-dress, singing to himself, and swaying unsteadily by the roadside. As you pass, he bids you a cheery “Good night”, unaware that tomorrow is already here.

When the sun begins to rise, the best vantage point is a bridge. The river has been left to itself; it looks clean and fresh. At this time of the day, it really is a river, not just an obstacle to get across. It flows quietly past the boats and barges still tied to their moorings. In the distance, the first rays of sunlight strike against the tallest spires, domes, and monuments. Buildings begin to look less somber, as if they were stirring out of sleep. By the time you have crossed to the other side of the bridge, the city has already changed. The first buses rumble down the street; lorries laden with fruit and vegetables clatter past, on their way to market. A few people emerge from railway-stations; there is a clink of plates and cups from a nearby café and one or two people stop to drink tea or coffee. You may still pass a policeman or a road sweeper, but he probably will not greet you now. the city is coming to life, its streets filling slowly with people and traffic, all preparing for yet another day.