London Things to Do

The flame has been extinguished and  London‘s  2012 Olympics is over, but memories of the big event will live on as the custom built sporting arenas and public areas are refurbished and reopened to the public.

Olympic Park is set to reopen as the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, with the first stage, North Park, opening up in July 2013, and the area becoming East London’s biggest public park, equipped with event stages, children’s playgrounds and 35km of walkways and cycle routes.The remainder of the 560-acre (230-hectare) park, including hockey and tennis facilities, The South Plaza and stadium, the aquatic center and the Orbit, will be open by Easter of 2014.

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.

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.

Greenwich Park, located in south-east London, beside the River Thames, is the oldest royal park in London, established in 1433 and now forming part of the Greenwich UNESCO World Heritage Site. Encompassing 183 acres (74 ha) the park is made up of beautiful sloping grasslands including a deer sanctuary home to a herd of Fallow and Red deer; a traditional early 20th-century style Tea Pavilion; and forested hillsides offering sweeping views across the River Thames to St Paul’s Cathedral and beyond.

It’s the oldest royal park in London and was established in 1433. It’s 183 acres (74 ha) of beautiful sloping parkland leading up to the Royal Observatory (home of the Prime Meridian) and Planetarium, including the historic Queen’s House, the Royal Naval College and the National Maritime Museum. Due to the park’s use for the Olympic Games, it will be closed to the public until August 4th.

Hitting headlines recently as the 2012 Olympic Shooting venue, the London Royal Artillery Barracks boast a long military history, built in 1776 for the companies of the Royal Artillery and used by them until 2007. Not only that, the Royal Artillery Barracks once hosted the Royal Arsenal complex, home to the British Government’s principal armaments manufacturing facility, and the Royal Military Academy which trained officers and engineers from 1741 to 1939. Nearby Woolwich Common is still a military training area, so if you’re lucky, you might catch a glimpse of the Royal troops marching through the park.

30km South of London nestled in the vibrant student hub of Surrey, Box Hill is one of South England‘s most popular lookout points, famed for its sweeping panoramas. A popular picnic spot since Victorian times, Box Hill cemented its tourist itinerary status when it hosted the cycling portion of the 2012 London Olympics.

Crossing Charing Cross Road at Shaftesbury Avenue during rush-hour on Thursday, I found the traffic halted, more police than I’ve ever seen in my life and people lining the kerb. The Olympic Torch was coming past, circling through central London and ever closer to the stadium.

And so today it begins: Opening Day of the Olympic Games London 2012.

The 2012 London Olympics… in the form of a handy infographic guide!