Quote Originally Posted by Vinyadan View Post
Since we are talking about roads and travel, something which surprised me a lot was that bridges used to be the equivalent of a central square in large cities. So the pont neuf of Paris, which now is just a road, was the centre of life in the city for centuries, with markets, showmen, shops, prostitutes, pickpockets, and a variety of people spending time there. Italy still has a couple such bridges, Rialto in Venice and the Ponte Vecchio in Florence contain shops.
It was very different from what we have now for bridges, with these very long roads, often almost deserted by pedestrians, and quite cold, wet, and windy.
Old London Bridge was also quite famous for being virtually a shopping mall back in the day.

While cleaning up my computer, I found a link to this medieval price list, which lists the annual rent of 138 shops on London Bridge as 160 pounds and 4 shillings in 1365.

That's a lot of shops to squeeze into 300 yards (~275m):

Spoiler: Old London Bridge
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