The Summer Olympic Games and the Paralympic Games set for London in 2012 promises to attract more than 500,000 spectators, according to the Destination Guide for London Eastside.
This will be their largest crowd in history and it will all unfold between July 27 and Aug.12 (the Olympics), followed by the Paralympic Games slated for Aug. 29 to Sept. 9. Add to this, Queen Elizabeth celebrating her Diamond Jubilee and you can see why British Airways inaugurated daily service between San Diego and London this June, making this California’s third gateway to the U.K. after San Francisco and Los Angeles.
The briefing on the Summer Olympics was given in a rather unexpected place, Fish Island in London’s Eastside. This is where the Olympic Park and Stadium was constructed after 265 businesses in the warehouse district were dismantled to make way for the stadium.
H. Forman & Son, known for their famous London Cure fresh Scottish salmon, was one of those warehouses relocated and it is now the closest venue to the Olympic Park and Stadium, and you can’t miss this fish-shaped structure. Lance Forman greeted the press and briefed them on London’s historic Eastside while eating bagels and cream cheese dressed with his family’s famous lox, also known as genuine wild smoked Scottish salmon.
The Eastside is a destination in itself with galleries galore such as the Nunnery, a three-room contemporary gallery with more than 100 practicing artists, Old Spitalfields Market with a covered piazza where Victorian brickwork blends easily with clean-cut steel structures, and the unexpected Lotus, a floating Chinese restaurant within a stylized barge on Millwall Dock.
Cruising on the Thames aboard River Bus Services, you can board at Embankment Pier, near the London Eye, a Ferris wheel outfitted with 32 capsules each weighing 10 tons that attracts 3.75 million visitors annually. Disembark at the Tower of London, tour the museum with the Crown Jewels, then embark for Canary Wharf, an office shopping mall complex not unlike Century City, and then make your way out to London’s East End.
With the Olympics and Jubilee coinciding, consider being in the center of it all. Opened in April, the 294-guestroom Corinthia Hotel, once a Victorian landmark, is within walking distance of Trafalgar Square and convenient to the Embankment. This is a five-star masterpiece of hospitality, from high tea to massage and hydrotherapy treatments.
The treatments should get you in tip-top shape and ready for theatre hopping.
Celebrating America’s love affair with rock and roll are two nifty musicals, “Dreamboats” and “Petticoats,” across the street from the Corinthia Hotel at the Playhouse Theatre, and the musical, “Million Dollar Quartet,” at the Noel Coward Theatre.
More information:
www.londoneastside.co.uk
www.thamesclippers.com
www.visitbritain.com
www.Britishairways.com
www.corinthia.com
Pamela Price is the coauthor of “Day Trips from Los Angeles,” published by www.globepequot.com