We know that London’s a 24-hour city, but this fascinating video demonstrates how people travel around the capital day and night.

The map illustrate the journeys made by London’s 3.1 million Oyster card holders during one 24-hour period. It was created using data from 16 million daily Oyster transactions, as well as vehicle-location data from the city’s 8,500 buses.

Find out more more at http://jaygordon.net/londonviz.html#sthash.Kne3K4Co.dpuf

The Games might be over but there’s still plenty going on in the Olympic Park.

Free bus tours began this week, offering a great chance to witness the park’s £292 million transformation into a new cultural hub and green space for London, before it reopens in phases from summer 2013. Here are some top things to spot on the trip:

1. Dismantling the Venues

The park is currently a huge construction site – or, more correctly, a deconstruction site. The world’s largest McDonald’s has been dismantled, as has the Riverbank Arena where Olympic hockey was played. On the bus tours you’ll be able to spot temporary venues being removed as well as athletes’ training centres, security areas and temporary seating stands or “wings” being taken to pieces. 

2. South Park Plaza

The area around the distinctive red ArcelorMittal Orbit sculpture is being transformed into an urban park the size of 16 football pitches. When it’s finished, the new South Park Plaza will boast fountains, a climbing wall, a 12-metre wide tree-lined boulevard and “garden rooms” created by planting designer Piet Oudolf. During the Games, this space was the first part of the park most visitors saw after entering through the Stratford entrance.

3. Planting the Park

It was already a park to begin with, but over the next year or so the amount of open space in the Park will be doubled to a whopping 252 acres. The planting project includes 4,300 semi-mature trees, over 100,000 new shrubs and almost one million bulbs, which will all be watered by a park-wide water system. Even today the park has plenty of wildlife – you could see swans, ducks, cormorants and coots.

4. The First Neighbourhood

The Basketball Arena is one of the largest temporary Olympic venues ever built, and will be deconstructed between now and next autumn. The entire building can be recycled – from the seating to the floor – and some parts will head over to Brazil to be used at the Rio 2016 Games. Once the area is cleared it will be the site for the first new housing neighbourhood in the park, Chobham Manor.

5. The Stadium

Of course, no trip to the park would be complete without a glimpse of the iconic Olympic Stadium where athletes like Usain Bolt sped to victory this summer.

Tours run on Wednesdays, Thursdays and some weekends, until the Park begins to open in phases from July 2013. To book, email parktours@springboard-marketing.co.uk or call 0800 023 2030.

London’s famous double-decker buses are an ideal way to see the city if you’re on a budget. Buy a Travelcard for the day and take a self-guided city tour on London’s best bus routes. These five cover most of the major sights in the city. Their routes are described from west to east and the return journey passes the same sights in reverse.

Number 74
Starting in Putney, this route travels past London’s museums hub in South Kensington where the Natural History Museum, Science Museum and Victoria and Albert Museum sit side by side. It then passes luxury department store Harrods and the boundary of one of London’s largest green spaces at Hyde Park Corner. You can catch a glimpse of The Dorchester hotel just after, followed by the famous haunt of public rhetoric – Speaker’s Corner at Marble Arch. The final stop is Baker Street, home to both the Madame Tussauds waxwork museum and the Sherlock Holmes Museum, at the site of the fictional detective’s residence.

Number 9
The number 9 is one of only two routes operating the old-style Routemaster buses on part of its route. Leaving from Hammersmith, it passes Kensington Palace (you’ll have to get off to see it) followed by the beautiful Royal Albert Hall and the monument to Queen Victoria’s husband which sits opposite it. Like the number 74, the 9 passes the museums in Kensington, Harrods and Hyde Park corner. It takes a different route afterwards to visit St James’s Palace, Trafalgar Square, The Savoy hotel and arts and cultural centre Somerset House.

Number RV1
The RV1 is a favourite route for us here at VL Towers! Despite being a single decker, it still passes through some of the best parts of London, giving you a great cultural tour of the city. Soak up some shops and street theatre at Covent Garden before taking the RV1. Hopping on it will take you to the South Bank where you’ll see the London Eye and Royal Festival Hall. The London Bridge stop is metres from the London Dungeon and City Hall is the next sight on the route, which crosses Tower Bridge to finish up at the Tower of London.

Number 24
The 24 sets off from Camden Town which offers alternative fashion and food. The bus then heads to the more mainstream Leicester Square in the centre, calling in at Trafalgar Square and Horse Guards Parade. The political heart of London is next as the bus passes Parliament Square where you’ll find Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament, as well as the nearby Westminster Abbey where the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge were married last year. The final site is the city’s policing headquarters at the iconic New Scotland Yard building.

Be aware that some bus routes might change during the Olympic Games and the Paralympic Games – read our top tips for Olympic travel here

We’ve got a beautiful and cool film for you this week, shot entirely from a London bus. Film-maker Moritz Oberholzer has perfectly captured the comedy and mystery of London’s streets, and the soundtrack by Ratatat seems hand-picked for our week of late summer sun.

As well as familiar streets, look out for a chilled-out pigeon and some promising yo-yo skills. Your commute will never be the same again.

On Saturday, there are just 1,000 days to go until the opening ceremony of the London 2012 Olympic Games.

The London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games (LOCOG) has released details suggesting more than 5 million people are now “involved” in the Games in one way or other.

So, if you’re reading this, chances are you’re either one of them, or you know someone who is!

Whether it’s the Inspire Programme looking at community projects, the Get Set programme in schools, the Cultural Olympiad, School Sports Week, or your company is working on the Games, it’s becoming clear than 2012 is having quite an impact.

So, tomorrow is time for London to celebrate this involvement in different ways:

• A Games-themed photography exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, called The Road to 2012, featuring portraits of people working towards the Games
• A spectacular firework display from the BT Tower tomorrow night, including a huge LED banner count-down message on top of the tower. (Watch this from London’s hilltops – Primrose Hill, Parliament Hill or on the BBC Lottery programme from 8.45pm)
• The London 2012 Corgi-made replica London bus goes on sale tomorrow in Hamley’s
• The limited edition adidas t-shirt, with pictures representing all the Olympic sports is available to buy here
• The Royal Mail’s 2012 stamps go on sale

With just 1,000 days to go, all eyes are on the next step: the aquatic centre’s roof is due to be finished before the end of the year…

But, alongside London 2012, we want to know what you’re going to achieve in the next 1000 days? Let us know in the comments below, tell twitter @london2012team, or visit www.london2012.com.

Early in the 20th century, London’s population grew so much that public transport had to expand, enabling thousands of people to go and live in the suburbs and commute into Central London for work. The Suburbia exhibition is packed with previously unseen posters, Londoners stories and memorabilia celebrating public transport’s contribution to the London suburbs.

Areas formerly outside London became more like London villages and new stations were built. Stunning posters were commissioned for the tube encouraging Londoners to move to the suburbs – work all day in the city, then escape and spend your leisure time in a heavenly paradise like Edgware or Morden.

The exhibition celebrates the great suburban pastime of gardening (hence the gnomes) and includes video clips of entertaining fictional suburbanites like Reggie Perrin and Margo Leadbetter.

The history of commuting is brought bang up to date with suburban inspired pop songs and a loving tribute to the iPod, a necessity for every commuter who needs to drown out the inane blather of the vacuous twit on the mobile phone.

If you know London well, you’ll love searching through the old sepia photos looking for pics of your local high street when it contained a horse and cart instead of a kebab shop!

The Suburbia exhibition is great fun and captures the spirit of the suburbs. Afterwards you can go and play on the old trains. Bliss. The exhibition runs till 31 March 2010.