London Things to Do

So the Aviva Birmingham Grand Prix has reignited our flame for watching sports after a two week hiatus following the Olympics Closing Ceremony. Now the stage is set for the Paralympics which begin on August 29th and runs until September 9th.

The Paralympic Torch has been lighting up the country beginning on August 22nd with the lighting of four flames at Great Britain’s highest points: Scarfell Pike in England, Slieve Donard in Northern Ireland, Snowdon in Wales and Ben Nevis in Scotland.

Only a couple more weeks of the official English summer before kids go back to school, the openair cinema screens come down and the deckchairs in the parks are packed away for another year.

It’s been a mixed bag of weather, but that hasn’t stopped the festivities and events from livening up the city of London, especially in this year of Olympics and Paralympics, and there’s still plenty more to come.

And so it comes to a close. The spectacular cauldron will be turned off, the flame returned to Greece for another four years until it travels to Rio de Janeiro.

If the Opening Ceremony was anything to judge by, the closing of London 2012 will be worth taking notice of, even if there has been a lot less publicity about it.

Each August, on the final bank holiday weekend of the summer, the eyes of London shift west to take in one of the city’s most vibrant and voracious street carnivals. The Notting Hill Carnival is organized by the area’s vast Caribbean population and is a celebration of their roots and heritage through music, dance, food and general flamboyance. Running since 1964, the carnival is Europe’s biggest street festival, drawing in crowds of over a million spectators to gawp at the flashy costumes and join in the party.

Who is the oldest Olympian ever? Who was the youngest to ever win a medal? Who has made the most Olympic games appearances? Who began the Modern Olympics? Which country decided Beach Volleyball should be an olympic sport? And BMX racing?

If you’ve ever wondered the answers to some or all of these questions, then London has the answers for you in the many exhibitions around town at the moment.

One of London’s eight Royal Parks and in close proximity to many of central London’s tourist attractions, Hyde Park is one of the city’s most popular parks, set around the vast Serpentine lake and home to a number of poignant monuments like the Princess Diana Memorial Fountain and the 7th July Memorial in honor of the victims of the 2005 London bombings.

As we all know, Olympic Football is largely being played outside London and in fact the London 2012 Olympics kicked off not in London or even England but in Cardiff, Wales making this a truly British Olympics despite its name.

So far all the dire predictions of crowds and transport chaos have failed to come true. London seems to be coping well with hosting the Olympic Games – although there are still many days remaining.

80,000 people left the opening ceremony without major delays even though the event ran well past midnight, but London kept the trains running until 2:30am – unheard of!

The 2012 Olympics might be a distant memory now, but London‘s Olympic Stadium is set to stay a focal point of the capital’s sporting events, with the park hosting it’s first post-Olympics event -  the London Cycling Festival - in August 2013.

If you’re traveling out to Olympic Park, you have a few choices of how to get there and there are a number of gates to enter the park.

The stations which were expected to be very congested have not been as crowded as feared: London Bridge, Bank, Charing Cross, St Pancras, the Jubilee and DLR lines were busy but flowing well.

Hampton Court Palace is on the edge of London alongside the Thames River, and while famous as the home of Henry, Hampton Court remained an occupied royal palace for many centuries.