World's Gaze Turns to London 2012

Thousands of people have gathered on the Mall to celebrate the handover of the Olympics from Beijing to London. The British capital is now the host city of the Summer Olympics. London was given an eight minute slot in the closing ceremony.

Pop group McFly blasted out a rendition of the Winner Takes it All, on the Mall, just before the symbolic handover took place in Beijing. When the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, received the Olympic flag, the assembled on the Mall and at various locations round the UK cheered. The party on the Mall is due to end at 17:00.

Glasgow is also an official Olympic city. Some of the Olympic football matches will be held in Glasgow. The Commonwealth Games will be hosted in Scotland's largest city in 2014. Unfortunately, the giant screen erected in George Square failed as the handover ceremony reached a crucial stage.

Understandably, Londoners were excited at the prospect of the 'Greatest Show on Earth" coming to their city. An estimated crowd of 40,000 people congregated on the Mall outside Buckingham Palace.

Buckingham Palace and the Mall are no strangers to wild celebrations. An estimated one million people - fifty times today's estimated crowd - gathered on the Mall on 4 June 2002, to celebrate the Queen’s Golden Jubilee.

Most of us will not be able to compete in the Olympics, but Londoners and visitors to the English capital alike can get in shape with a little of gentle exercise courtesy of Walk Talk Tours.

Visitors to London can get a taste of Royal and monumental London with the Palace Trail audio walking tour. The Palace Trail follows the Coronation Procession from Buckingham Palace to Westminster Abbey in reverse.

Listeners to the tour begin outside Westminster Abbey, walk on to the Houses of Parliament before hearing hearing about Parliament Square's lone anti-war protester. Walk Talk Tourists then head up Whitehall past the Cenotaph where Britain's war dead are commemorated, before stopping outside Downing Street which contains the Prime Minister's official residence, Number 10. To hear an audio sample from the Palace Trail mp3 guided tour please click here.

Continue to Trafalgar Square via Charing Cross. Then walk under Admiralty Arch (pictured above) onto the Mall where today's celebrations have taken place. The Latin inscription that adorns the Trafalgar Square side of the Admiralty Arch roughly translates as: In the tenth year of the reign of King Edward VII to Queen Victoria, from your most grateful citizens, 1911.

In addition, there are four other Walk Talk Tour audio walking tours of London. All of the Walk Talk Tours of London - bar the longer City & South Bank Circular podcast guided tour - can be completed in two hours. All of the Walk Talk Tour London travel guides are available in English, French, German and Spanish.

Each of the Walk Talk Tours London travel guides costs just £5.95 each. Customers purchasing two tours simultaneously will receive a twenty per cent discount. Buy three simultaneously and get thirty per cent off.

Listeners to a Walk Talk Tour London city guide are free to stop, start and resume their London city walking tour as they wish - or as the weather dictates.

In addition there are two Walk Talk Tour audio walking tours of Edinburgh, a Walk Talk Tour mp3 guided tour of York and a Walk Talk Tour iPod travel guide of Manchester.