Explore London
Few places in London have engendered so many myths as the East End (a catch-all title which covers just about everywhere east of the City). Its name is synonymous with slums, sweatshops and crime, as epitomized by figures such as Jack the Ripper and the Kray Twins, but also with the rags-to-riches success stories of a whole generations of Jews who were born in these cholera-ridden quarters and then moved to wealthier pastures.
As the area is not an obvious place for sightseeing, and certainly no beauty spot – despite all the fanfare around the 2012 Olympic Village – most visitors to the East End come for its famous Sunday markets: cheap clothes on Petticoat Lane (Middlesex Street), clothes and crafts in trendy Spitalfields, hip vintage gear around Brick Lane and flowers on Columbia Road. As for the East End Docklands, including the vast and awesome Canary Wharf redevelopment, most of it can be gawped at from the overhead light railway.
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Thinking big: Olympic Park
Thinking big: Olympic Park
Focus of the 2012 Olympics, London’s Olympic Park is situated in a most unlikely East End backwater, on a series of islands formed by the River Lea and various tributaries and canals. The centrepiece of the park is the Olympic Stadium, surrounded on three sides by rivers, and earmarked to become home to West Ham United football club. Standing close to the stadium, with a bird’s-eye view of the whole site from its public observation deck, is the Orbit tower, a 377ft-high continuous loop of red recycled steel designed by Anish Kapoor, and dubbed the Helter Skelter. The most eye-catching venue, however, is Zaha Hadid’s wave-like Aquatics Centre, to the east, which may have cost four times its original, but at least it looks good. The other truly sexy building is the curvy Velodrome, with its banked, Siberian pine track and adjacent BMX circuit. The nearest tube is Stratford; you can also approach from Hackney Wick Overground or Pudding Mill Lane DLR station.
