If you are one of the thousands of spectators who will be descending on London this summer for the Olympic and Paralympic Games you may be busy planning your trip to the capital with how you will be travelling to London being a priority. You may therefore find the following London Olympics 2012 travel tips useful.

Rail Travel

Great Britain has an extensive network of railways to London, which, as roads into London are likely to be heavily congested, may be one of the quickest and most convenient ways to travel to the capital. Throughout the Games shuttle buses will be available to transport visitors from the major railway stations to the Olympic Park and other venues.

National Rail tickets are also available to take spectators to their event and are offering passengers exclusive value fares to London from every station on the National Rail network.

By coach or bus

It is expected that approximately ten percent of spectators will travel to London for the 2012 Games by coach or bus. To cater for the thousands of passengers expected there is a total of 300 coaches providing offering express travel to both the Olympic Park and Weymouth and Portland, where the sailing events are being held.

Most of the coach and bus services put on for London 2012 will have wheelchair access.

For more information about travelling to this year’s Olympics and Paralympics by coach and bus, click here.

Read more ›

Arsenal Emirates Stadium Tours – A great day out even if you’re not an Arsenal fan!

Similar to likes of Manchester United, Real Madrid, Barcelona and AC Milan, Arsenal Football Club has supporters all over the world. Given its status as being one of the world’s biggest football clubs, Arsenal FC’s stadium, the Emirates Stadium, is one of the most technologically advanced and pioneering football stadiums in Europe.

This innovative stadium, which is the newest ground in the English Premier League and has a capacity of 60,361, features many state-of-the-art facilities, making Arsenal Emirates Stadium Tours a remarkable day out, whether you are an Arsenal fan or not.

Arsenal FC moved to the Emirates Stadium in 2006. Located in Holloway, an inner-city district of the Borough of Islington, this striking football ground is considered a UEFA elite football stadium and has been noted for the quality of its playing surface.

If you want to experience one of the elitist football stadiums in Europe then why not go on an Arsenal Emirates Stadium Tour? Visit the luxurious changing rooms, which include a hydrotherapy spa, and get a real feel of Arsene Wenger giving his players advice at half time!

Take a walk through the tunnel and out on to the magnificent four-tiered bowl, whilst imagining how the players feel on match day! You can even take a pew in Arsene Wenger’s seat in the dug-out!

Read more ›

Since he was first catapulted into public attention in 1988 when he conceived and curated an influential exhibition of works in a disused ware house in London by himself and his fellow Goldsmith College students, Damien Hirst became internationally renowned and one of the most prominent and influential British contemporary artists.

The often controversial artist, whose central theme in his works is death, is, according to the 2010 Sunday Times Rich List, the richest living British artist, with a fortune of £215 million.

In celebration of the provocative artist’s work, from 4 April – 9 September 2012, London Tate Modern is holding a Damien Hirst exhibition which will feature more than 70 iconic Damien Hirst creations, which will be the first substantial survey of Damien Hirst’s work ever held in the UK.

Sponsored by the Qatar Museums Authority, the works to be featured at London’s Tate Modern span a journey of more than two decades and include some of his best known, shocking and imaginative pieces.

The Damien Hirst exhibition is also part of the London 2012 Festival, the culmination of the Cultural Olympiad, the largest cultural celebration in the history of the modern Olympic and Paralympic Movements. Spread over four years, the Cultural Olympiad gives everyone the chance to be involved in London 2012 as well as inspiring creativity across all forms of culture.

Hirst’s ‘Mother and Child Divided’, a four-part sculpture of a bisected cow and calf will be on display at the exhibition, as well as the equally thought provoking shark suspended in formaldehyde to which the artist called ‘The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living.’

Other works which will be featured at the Tate Modern include Hirst’s piece from 1990 called ‘A Thousand Years’, in which the cycle of life is represented by a cow’s head, flies and insect-o-cutor.

Read more ›

London, as of much of Europe, has been subjected to some seriously freezing temperatures this winter, creating life-threatening dangers for anyone sleeping on the streets.

According to an article published in the Guardian in 2011, the number of people sleeping rough in Britain has risen for the first time in a decade. One harrowing image of this seemingly endless recession is the sight of more and more people being forced, through lack of work, unable to pay mortgage repayments or rent and becoming evicted from their homes, to sleep on the streets and in doorways in London.

In an attempt to tackle the rising problem of homelessness in London, particularly when faced with sub-zero temperatures, the Mayor of London has opened a city-hall funded emergency rough sleepers’ shelter in the district of Lambeth.

The shelter is being managed by St Mungo’s, a charity which has been helping homeless people since 1969. The emergency shelter at Lambeth will provide homeless people in London with a hot shower, a bed, clean clothes and food. There is also advice and support offered to people about finding more permanent accommodation to help get them off the streets for good.

The emergency shelter has been funded by Boris Johnson, and was opened as a lifeline to people sleeping rough during the freezing weather London was faced with during the winter.

Read more ›

The Cycling Festival – A two-wheel equivalent of the London Marathon.

A new cycling event in London has been announced and will start in the summer of 2013. The two-day ‘Cycling Festival’, which aims to attract more than 100,000 cyclists to participate, will be one of the first sporting legacies in London, post the 2012 Olympics.

This fun event will be split into two different races, the first being held on day-one of the festival, whereby amateur 70,000 cyclists, will take to London’s free-from-traffic streets and ride past some of the capital’s most famous landmarks. The second race of the festival will be dedicated to professional cyclists, who belong to a club. The 35,000 participants will speed along the 100-mile Olympic race course.

Showing excitement about the London Cycling Festival is Mark Cavendish. In a statement about the new event, the world cycling champion referred to the Cycling Festival as being a ‘legacy’ for the 2012 Olympic Games.

“This is the ideal legacy not only for our world-class team of cyclists and paracyclists, but also for thousands of amateur cyclists who will hopefully be inspired by our performance at the Olympic Games,” said Cavendish.

“This event will be a fantastic opportunity to show Britain at its best and to share our Olympic cycling heritage,” added the world champion.

Read more ›