Coffee, Cocktails and Books - A Round Up!

Over the last couple of weeks we've been blogging about some of our favourite places in London to drink a cocktail, meet for a coffee or find a good book. Here's a quick round up of some of the fantastic places that will supplement your Strollon Walk.

Books Stores

Whether your in Westminster, Covent Garden or West London we've got a bookshop near you.

Coffee

Love coffee? Read about our favourite coffee shops in London

Cocktails

It's the end of the week. Why not celebrate with a cocktail in the sunshine?

Cocktails in London

Who doesn't like a good cocktail? After a wonderful day walking around London there is nothing better than sitting down to a very cold, very dry martini or a clean, crisp daiquiri. So, here is a quick guide to some of our favourite cocktail bars on our StrollOn walks.

Soho

Our walk through Soho takes you past some fascinating sites but one addition is the wonderful bar at Bob Bob Ricard with it's deep plush seats, mirrored ceiling and top notch cocktails. Located on St James Street, just around the corner from Polpo, it serves delicious British and Russian food. It's owners, Bob and Richard are Russian and English respectively (Bob owns two thirds hence his name comes twice in case you were wondering). You sometimes have to book tables in advance but often you can walk in off the street. Try their excellent house champagne and some of their special nibbles.

Covent Garden

If you're close to The Royal Opera House (Chapter 18 on our Covent Garden Walk) then you're very close to the excellent Covent Garden Hotel. This is often where stars visiting London choose to stay when they are trying to be discrete and it has an excellent bar, The Brasserie Max. They do some delicious signature cocktails - try their Seven Dials martini, named after the area of Covent Garden the hotel is in: it is a delicious mix of passion fruit and elderflower with gin and orange flavoured martini. Just what the doctor ordered!

Westminster

You'll find The Cinnamon Club just behind the Houses of Parliament (chapters 1 - 8 on our walk). It's a wonderful restaurant that serves high end Indian food and is well worth visiting if you can. But there's also a wonderful bar in the basement. Unsurprisingly they try and bring an Indian twist to their drinks so check out some of their house specials like Curry Up! Curry Up! which mixes curry nectar with gin and lemon juice. It sounds weird but trust us, it's delicious.

Hopefully you've enjoyed our short guide to some of our favourite bars in London. If you're looking for more audio guides to London visit our website www.strollon.co.uk and if you've got any tips, please leave them in the comments below.

Basketball!

Ok, you might not associate Great Britain with basketball but this week this is - hopefully - all changing with the London Prepares Basketball Invitational. We've mentioned London Prepares before in our post about Women's Volleyball and this week it is time for basketball to take centre stage.

Over at Olympic Park in East London the Basketball Arena is open and ready for business. This week, Great Britain is taking part in a tournament featuring Australia, China, Croatia, France and Serbia to test out the facilities. Normally the stadium seat twelve thousand spectators but, in this test phase, there are only around three thousand tickets available. If you failed to get a ticket for next year here's your chance to get a taste of the action. You can find out more about tickets here.

If watching all that exercise makes you hungry for a bit more, than why not try out one of our walks, such as our tour of the nearby City of London. It's packed with information and you'll get to see some excellent sites.

The Glorious Tweltfth!

If you're in London this week you are in for a treat. In the UK August 12th is sometime known as The Glorious Twelfth because it marks the start of the shooting season and from then on shooters can happily hunt the Red Grouse, a delicious game bird that makes for a wonderful supper.

If you are in Covent Garden, perhaps on a StrollOn walking tour of the area, then one of your Foodie destinations should be Rules Restaurant. It's situated on Maiden Lane (chapter eight on our walk), a street famous for all sorts of reasons, not least its name which may mean that it used to be a dung heap! Rules is one of the world's oldest eateries. It was set up in 1798 by Thomas Rules as an oyster bar and has remained on the same site ever since. It's customers have included royals and writers, actors and politicians: many a famous face has sat within its walls and ate dinner at a Rules table.

At this time of year the restaurant comes into its strength for it serves some of the best game in London and from now you can get your hands - and your teeth - on delicious roast grouse, tender woodcock or a simple pheasant, all served with the usual trimmings: game chips, gravy and - hopefully - bread sauce! You can see the Rules menu here but it is worth noting that because the supply of game can vary it will not always be available. If you wanted to make doubly sure that you'll get some tasty game birds for your lunch or supper, call ahead.

And, if you need to work up an appetite for your meal, or perhaps walk it off, then check out our wonderful walking tours of London here. Enjoy!

Beach Volleyball!

What with the Olympics being less than a year away it is little wonder that our attention has started to turn to the games. As part of the London Prepares series, there are various sports going on in London over the next few weeks in an effort to introduce us to them and to work out any wrinkles. This week, at Horse Guards Parade, it is the turn of Women's' Beach Volleyball.

If you've listened to our Westminster walk, you will know that Horse Guard Parade is usually the site for Trooping the Colour but, next year, it will be transformed into a beach for the players. This week, to test this out, the Visa FIVB Beach Volleyball International is being held here. Over the weekend you can see the quarter finals, semi finals and finals being played. Check out the schedule here. It's sure to be a fun event and it's a great opportunity to see the sport up close if you haven't been able to get tickets for next year. And, if you're looking for something to do afterwards, try our Westminster Walk which will give you a wonderful walking tour of the area that is filled with history and insight.

Audio Posts: Da Polpo and The People's Supermarket

At StrollOn we specialise in giving you audio tours that are full and comprehensive. With this in mind I thought it would be fun to post by audio for a change. So here are two posts, the first about Da Polpo and wonderful Venetian restaurant in Covent Garden (with branches in Soho) and the second is about The People's Supermarket, a wonderful community run store in Bloomsbury. Both are wonderful stop offs after your StrollOn tour around Covent Garden. Enjoy!

Top 20 Things to do in London Under £20, Part 2 From A Girl, A Style

Yesterday I pointed out this great post by A Girl, A Style. She's just posted part 2 of Things To Do In London Under £20 and it's definitely worth checking out.

The British Museum

The British Museum is a pretty impressive place. For one thing, it is free. For another, it is one of the deepest, richest collections of antiquity and ethnography you are going to find anywhere in the world. That, in my book at least, makes it an essential stop off point in London.

Admission to the main exhibits has been free for nearly a decade. This means you can move from Ancient Greece and Rome (make sure you check out the controversial Elgin marbles which are magnificent) to Asia and the Middle East in a few steps. In each of these sections there are some real treasures. If you're in the Asian section, please have a look at the Green Huqqa base which is made of such brilliant colour that you will find it hard to believe it is over 400 years old. The trick is to allow some time to explore the British Museum slowly. Serendipity counts in a museum like this.

There are also a series of special exhibitions at the museum. These are not free unfortunately but they are a l0t of fun. At the time of writing, you can visit the Treasures of Heaven exhibit of saints, relics and other elements of medieval European worship (open till October 2011, tickets £12, book here). But keep an eye out here for other exhibits on your trip to London.

Afterwards, if you want some more culture, why not take one of our audio tours of Covent Garden? It's one of London's hottest spots and you can learn about everything from its history as a market to it being a centre of 18th century prostitution.

Markets in London: Portobello Road

When I first moved down to London there were two markets everyone talked about: Portobello Road and Camden. These days Camden is pretty dull these days - it used to be fashion forward but no it's a bit cheap. Portobello Road Market however keeps going from strength to strength.

Ostensibly it is an antiques market and, at the Notting Hill Gate end, you will find a series of antique shops whose wears will spill out onto the street everyday, but particularly on market days. As you move further down though you will come across food stalls, record stalls and fashion stalls. If you want to pick up some vintage shoes, dresses or jackets this is the place to go. The stock is continually refreshed and you'll stumble across some real steals. Leather is particularly good to look out for here because it always has that lived in look.

Don't feel shy when dealing with market stall owners - they expect you to haggle so give it a go: it's all part of the fun. After your shop for bargains check out The Fat Badger, a gastropub with great selection of British food and beers. It's cosy and fun, but keep in mind it's toward the Westbourne Park end of Portobello Road.

The best days to shop are Friday and Saturday when the market is can get quite busy. Make sure you take some cash too as the stall holders don't take cards. And, if you want a break, you can hop on the central line at Notting Hill Gate and head to Tottenham Court Road where you can enjoy our walk around Soho.

Hyde Park

One of the first things to say about Hyde Park is that it is huge. It is bigger than the Principality of Monaco for example. But don't be daunted. It is easily accessible and a great place to enjoy the sunshine.

If you are in London at the right time, keep an eye out on the concerts and gigs in Hyde Park. It is host to some amazing artists including Arcade Fire and The Killers. There are also other events, including an outdoor cinema. It's worth visiting this page to find out what's going on so that you can plan your visit accordingly.

Parks are for relaxing though and for enjoying the feel of the green grass beneath your feet and the sun on your face. If you want to collapse after one of our strolls around London why not hire a deck chair? You can out more about hiring here. You can also swim in the open air Lido if you want to. There is something liberating about swimming in the open air and it isn't something we get to do very often in London. The sun on your back while you glide through the water is a wonderful feeling. Find out more here. Just don't forget your trunks!

If you're looking for more to do in London, why not check out our London Strolls? You can find out more on our website www.strollon.co.uk

StrollOn's First Press Release

StrollOn - a new way to experience old places

Welcome to StrollOn, an innovative producer of entertaining and professional audio city guides for your iPod.

21st century travel is dominated by the Internet, which offers a vast choice of information that all travellers want and need. At the same time, audio-entertainment is dominated by the 150 million iPods sold worldwide. When the two are brought together, you have a new way to experience old places.

StrollOn stands out in this fast developing industry for the quality of its content and production. We work with experienced guides, expert sound engineers and the best actors to bring each city’s stories and secrets to life. We aim to entertain as well as to inform. We produce our guides not only for tourists, but also for the locals wanting to see and hear more about their city.

When you visit our website at www.strollon.com, you will see the choice of city guides that you can download. Our library is expanding rapidly into other European cities and into other types of guide. We currently offer audio walks that take the listener away from the crowds, off the beaten track. We will soon be bringing out individual, stand-alone guides around each city’s major sights and there will be overviews of cities, giving visitors a chance to feel more like a local. All our products are easily downloadable onto your iPod, giving you a personalised tour that you control - you go when you want and you see what you want.


Notes to Editors:

• StrollOn has focused on iPods because they are the most common and user-friendly MP3’s, but the city guides can be played on any MP3 including some mobiles
• At present, all StrollOn’s products are recorded in English. The company intends to make progress in this area.
• StrollOn currently offers 6 audio tours in London and 2 audio walks in Paris for £4.99.
• The overviews and individual sight-specific guides for London and Paris are now complete and will be downloadable shortly and for free.
• On our blog, www.strollon.co.uk/blog, we offer commentary on StrollOn, its products and the industry, and welcome feedback and opinions on each.


For further information contact:

• Nicholas Craig Harvey: ncraigharvey@strollon.co.uk
• George Broke : gbroke@strollon.co.uk
• Telephone : 020 7340 9611

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We released this, our first press release, earlier this week. After much tweaking and fine tuning we thought that this gave journalists and industry critics a good idea of what StrollOn is about. Currently, we are undergoing a period of change, both in terms of product range and destinations covered. We are expanding both and are really very excited about what we have managed to produce for your city sightseeing pleasure. We'd advise you to expect a few more releases over the coming weeks as the website changes to accommodate our new audio walks and audio city guides. We're looking forward to hearing what you have to say abou them so long as it's positive. If not, you still know where to come and slate us: here, to our faces...

...in the meantime, StrollOn...

A World of Audio guides, Walks and iPods

Hello and welcome to StrollOn

We are a new company, providing a recently developed product on our new website. We've set up this blog so that we can tell you all about us as you join us from our infancy. We don't want you to help us simply to become the biggest, but we do want you to help us become the best. So let's start at the beginning, with where we are right now.

What do we do?

Our aim is to bring popular technology, city sightseeing and walking together, serving them up in an interesting, amusing and accessible package. In short, we produce high quality Audio tours and Overviews of cities that you download onto your iPod or mp3 player. The rest is explained on our website, where you can find a full description of what we are and what we do.

Why do we do it?

We feel strongly that people can miss a lot from the experience of visiting and walking through a city. We want to give everyone a new view through their ears. And by everyone we mean you, your friends and family.

How do we do it?

With the help of professionals: guides, actors, actresses, designers and studio technicians. They are the finest that we can find and we look forward to introducing them to you over the coming months, as we allow you access to the production process with our behind the scenes tours and updates.

Who wants them?

We make them for everyone. They are not only for visitors - even residents enjoy them. Students, independent travelers, single people, families, people on business and holiday, the elderly, the young, the conventional and quirky. Whoever YOU are we look forward to meeting you.

In the meantime, StrollOn....