Happy Apps for Paris and London

We now have 2 cities in the App stores – iPhone and Android - with Paris and London fully covered by our walks and general guides. A third is coming out as I write – that sounds painful but I meant that it is going to be launched in the stores in a few days. 

 Strollon definitely stands out for its quality. We had this idea for MP3 guides way ahead of the market and there are now many for various parts of the world but you only have to listen to a few of them to realise that quality really matters. Bad sounds are Bad news.

 You will see from the App store that our developers are Locatify and I strongly recommend a visit to their Apps that are Treasure Hunts 

 You can produce your own: challenge someone to find the restaurant you are meeting for lunch; or make one up for a party. Schools have written them for form outings and charities raise money with a Hunt. They are very simple to make and an excellent way to keep the friends you want to meet, and lose the friends you want to lose. Know what I mean?

 Oh, one last thing which was a reason for writing this blog. Make your own Guide. Yes, I mean it. We have devised a management system that lets you produce your own. Maybe not as good as Strollon’s but we are very happy to include it on our site if it covers somewhere special.

Do you know that Strollon has been in the top 5 on Google for our most relevant search terms since we started many years ago? This just shows how popular we are and how well we have designed the site.

Glad to have you along. Check out the App stores for these brilliant Apps:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/strollon-paris/id608381969?mt=8

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/strollon-london-your-personal/id559503515?mt=8

Bad bankers create bad buildings

Why stroll around the dreadful buildings of today? London is being wrecked by the misuse of money.
We are told that we must be grateful to the City of London for earning us so much money. In fact the City should be grateful to London for being such a lovely place to live. Why does it not put more of its riches back into London?

The City skyline

The City of London was built on the talents of merchants. Trading, lending, investing and insuring needed careful balancing of the risks and rewards but the profits purchased respectability and a sense of responsibility. If you take the Strollon walk you visit the churches these men built and the places where they met to discuss their business. You hear the stories of how they patronised the arts, the architects and the actor- dramatists.
As you walk through the City of London there are no new beautiful buildings – only towering infernos of office blocks. The museums are closing as their grants and sponsors are cut off by the City wise-men who talk about the need for economies and controls. The theatres and the operas have to charge outrageous prices that only bankers can afford and exclude the general public.
We are now in a sad situation of mutual distrust and misunderstanding by the outsiders and insiders of the City machine. They must understand exactly what benefits they get from London and give something back in return.
Unless there is more action by these City Titans, it will be even more difficult to enjoy a stroll through London without feeling it is just a museum surrounded by building sites.
Now is the time for them to listen and for us to speak.

Leonardo at the National Gallery

 The National Gallery has pulled a blinder. It has laid out an exhibition of such beauty that it will be hard to beat for a long time. Nicholas Penny, the Director of the Gallery and Luke Syson the creator of the exhibition should be praised and thanked for their work and skills.

 There are only 15 paintings by Leonardo da Vinci in the world, and here are 8 of them. There are only 50 sketches, and here are 33 of them. OK the Mona Lisa has stayed in France but this is not such a loss – I have always thought that the name is more beautiful than the face and that Leonardo has painted many better pictures. One of them is the portrait of Cecilia Gallerani who is all over the catalogue and the posters. She was Ludovico Sforza’s mistress from the age of 15 and as she turns to smile you can see how she would catch any man’s heart in her hands. She was very beautiful and just 3 metres away is her very cross rival - Ludovico’s wife. There are many theories about why Leonardo painted her with an ermine including a play on her name and as a symbol of her purity This matters very little – take a closer look at her veil and her necklace and you could be looking at a model in a magazine today. It is a stunning display of Leonardo at his most human and most personal. He recognised that beauty is timeless and that it should be celebrated in art as well as in reality. This is a goddess painted by a god.

Towards the end of the show is a newly-discovered Leonardo called Salvator Mundi that emerged in America relatively recently. It is a mystery how it got there but there is no doubt that this is the genuine article owned by an unnamed syndicate of investors – a spectacular return on a relatively small investment. Quite a find! Almost as spectacular as Nicholas Penny’s discovery of a Raphael behind the door in the passageway of a Northern castle – it raised $40 million for the lucky Dukes.

I am afraid to say that if you do not have a ticket then you can only get in by queuing 3 hours from 6 am. Is it worth it? Yes. But if you are too cold for the queue then go for our Covent Garden walk.

The Bloomsbury Festival

Regular readers of this blog will now that Bloomsbury is one of my favourite parts of London. So I was very pleased to read about The Bloomsbury Festival which is happening this weekend (21st - 23rd October). The festival celebrate contemporary and historical Bloomsbury, featuring readings by poets Wendy Shutler and Stephanie Gera, a session on the Philosophy of Wine Tasting, and an evening of theatre and cocktails at RADA.

It all sounds like a lot of fun and most of it is free so do check it out. You can find out all about the festival here.

Afterwards, why not try one of our walking tours? Covent Garden is just around the corner from Bloomsbury and you can explore it in about an hour. Our walking tour can be found here.

Paris Without A Reservation

One of the great pleasures of Paris is the food. It's a cliché, of course, but it's no less true for that. But if you're visiting the city to eat well, you face a dilemma. Do you book several weeks in advance or do you throw caution to the wind and chance finding a decent table at a decent restaurant at the last minute? Food writer Fiona Beckett has written this fascinating  post about surviving Paris without a reservation on her blog Food and Wine Finds showing that not only is possible but that it is fun too.  You can read Fiona's post here


If you're in Paris don't forget to check out our audio tours of the city. You can find out more information at www.strollon.co.uk

The Shoreditch Vintage Fair

If you're a bit of a fashionista then this weekend's Shoreditch Vintage Far will be right up your street. There will be stalls there with clothes for men and women and you can get your hands on some real bargains. Plus, if you want to give your house a vintage feel you can pick up some great furnishings and homewares too.

Afterwards, why not explore the nearby City of London with our StrollOn Guide?


You can find out more about the fair here.

The Natural History Museum

Located close to South Kensington Tube, the Natural History Museum is one of London's most interactive destinations. If you've ever wondered about insects, bears, dinosaurs or butterflies, you will want to visit this magnificent museum. It's free to visitors and there are lots of must sees including skeletons of a T-rex, Brontosaurus and Triceratops and, in the mammals section, you can see a huge blue whale. If you want to know more about the museums highlights please click here. 

There are also several temporary exhibitions available to visitors and though there is sometimes an entrance fee these often offer you a rare chance to glimpse some of the more esoteric parts of the museum's collection. You can find out more about what's on here.

If you're inspired by the museum to take a walk around London please check out our site www.strollon.com where you can get your hands on the best audio tours of London.