With the unavoidable hype surrounding the Olympics this year, we thought it would be fun to take a tour of the Olympic Park.  I have a few tickets to some fencing events but unfortunately those all take place at the Excel Centre, far away from the main Olympic venues.  I won’t get to see the completed works during the games, so this is likely as close as I’ll get for the foreseeable future.

The majority of the tour took place a considerable distance from the park, discussing the history of the area and showcasing some of the regeneration that’s been done.  I knew beforehand that we wouldn’t actually get access to the grounds (due to the over-the-top security), but a lot of the banter didn’t really interest me.  The regeneration projects were nice to see, but obviously not what we were there for.

We were told we were the last ‘lucky’ group who would have close proximity access to the village before the games start.  The road that provided the best views (the three images displayed here were all taken on that road) was to be closed to all traffic the very next day.

The tour lasted about 2 hours and ended at Westfield Shopping Centre (which by ‘happy accident’, almost everyone attending an event here must pass through).  It was fairly informative and our guide was friendly and amenable to our questions, but as far as I know the tours have stopped now so there’s no reason to recommend going.

Having been sucked into Westfield, we stopped for a bit of Yo-Sushi lunch before heading home for the day. There are a couple more images in the gallery.