Mayor of London’s Skyride and Open House London add up to make one exciting weekend!

The weather may be speedily cooling, but this weekend there’s plenty in London to help keep you warm. First up is the Mayor of London’s Skyride (formally known as Freewheel), where you can ride around the city with your kids in complete safety thanks to the banishing of traffic along the chosen routes. If this safety is impaired by your kid’s lack of bike riding prowess, there are even cycling safety lessons available for children aged 8 – 16, where your kid can earn themselves a goodie bag and you can take a much needed sit down. If you get tired along the way there are six pit stops available, all with toilet facilities. To find out more visit their website .

If on your bike ride you see an interesting building and ponder to yourself how wonderful it would be to have a guided tour, possibly even by the architect of said building, then this weekend you are in luck, as this is exactly what you can do.

Open House London, which runs this weekend, gives people the opportunity to get guided tours around some 700 of London’s most interesting buildings. Some of these tours require pre-booking, which sadly it’s a bit too late to do, but there are still many free tours on offer, for which you can just turn up. You could take a look around anything from the Bank of England to the Alleyways of the City. For more information on buildings or walks near you, take a look at the directory here.

Of course the children may not appreciate walking around old buildings all day, so there are some things for them to get there teeth into. At City Hall from 10am – 1pm on both Saturday and Sunday there is something called City of a Thousand Architects, where children aged 5 – 10 can express their creativity by helping design a new skyline for London (and parents can join in too!). For all the budding photographers out there, there is Snap! a photography competition for the under 12’s. Your child has to simply take a photo of a building they have visited, and email it to kidscompetition@openhouse.org.uk . Winners will get a lovely large print of their photo to put up on their bedroom wall.

So there you go, a weekend full of culture and exercise, just what the doctor ordered. So enjoy yourselves, and don’t forget to let us know what you thought at reallykidfriendly.com

– George 

originally published on ReallyKidFriendly.com September 18th 2009 (72 reads)