Reasons to take flights to London in 2012
Could there be a better year to take flights to London? Cheapflights.com.au doesn't think so. Here are nine compelling reasons why Australians should fly the Kangaroo Route this year:
The Queen's Diamond Jubilee. Nobody does pomp and ceremony quite like the English and on the weekend of 2-5 June, Queen Elizabeth's loyal subjects will flood the streets to celebrate their monarch's remarkable longevity. Celebrations on that long weekend (workers are getting an extra public holiday) will include street parties, a river pageant on the Thames with 1,600 boats and a concert at Buckingham Palace.
It's the 200th anniversary of Charles Dickens's birth and there's a plethora of events, festivals and retrospectives being held around the world. London is synonymous with Dickens and the Museum of London's Dickens and London exhibition will be a must-see this year. It's the first major Dickens exhibition in the UK for more than 40 years.
The British Museum will host a major Shakespeare exhibition on the world of the playwright, bringing to life the London of 400 years ago through contemporary performance and priceless objects from the Museum’s collection.
The Olympics - the icing on the cake to see Australian athletes medal in London? Probably. London will be the first city in history to host the event for the third time (1908, 1948 and 2012), which it will do between 27 July and 12 August. The Paralympic Games will follow, from 29 August to 9 September.
London 2012 Festival - The fourth and final year of this Cultural Olympiad starts on 21 June and runs until 9 September. The enormous, wonderful festival showcases music, theatre, dance, art, film, food and fashion.
The best museums and galleries are still free. There's more than 300 exhibition spaces in the city, spanning the must-visits British Museum, National Gallery, Imperial War Museum, Tate Britain, Natural History Museum and V & A Museum to quirky, less-well-known spaces such as the Geffrye Museum (a series of rooms in old alms houses a stone's throw from Liverpool Street station. Rooms are decorated in different styles, from Tudor to what your granny would have had to today's pared-down IKEA style), the Horniman in South London, an eclectic mix of animals and musical instruments, and The British Dental Association Museum, devoted to, you guessed it, the Great British smile.
Street art is free, bright, thought-provoking and, in lots of cases, subversive. There are more artists than just Banksy. Set out on a search for C215, Sweet Toof, Eine, RUN and Mobstr.
The strong Aussie dollar means that London is an, whisper it, affordable destination. One of our dollars is worth £0.68. We haven't seen an exchange rate like that since 1985.
More pennies saved. Get to the landmark-packed boroughs of Westminster and Kensington and Chelsea and log on in Europe's largest free wi-fi zone.
Updated January 2012