Where nothing lines up

The proper place to begin this guide is not in London at all. Instead, for the purpose of historical accuracy, you must go to a volcano 1,200 miles (around 1,931km) from London, near the Italian city of Naples. In 1906, this volcano, Vesuvius, erupted with great force, as it tends to, and laid waste to Naples. The eruption killed over 100 people.

The costs of reconstruction were so high that the Italian government relinquished Rome’s right to hold the 1908 Olympics. London smartly stepped into the breach and work began promptly on the White City Stadium, located in west London, in the borough of Hammersmith and Fulham.

The 1908 Olympics was remarkable for a number of innovations and many more controversies. It was the first official international sports meet, for instance, where athletes paraded into the Olympic stadium behind their national flags (the practice started during the unofficial Intercalated Games of 1906).

Passions ran high right from the start. The Finns refused to parade under the flag of their colonizers, Tsarist Russia. The American flag bearer, meanwhile, refused to dip the flag as he marched in front of the British monarch.

Today, the area is much more subdued. But you can still have tremendous fun on one of the guided tours the BBC conducts of its buildings at White City seven days a week. The approximately 2-hour tours are particularly entertaining for fans of classic British shows such as Doctor Who. Go to http://is.gd/A6AWLo to book tickets. Before your tour starts, spot the plaques outside the Television Centre building commemorating the 1908 Games, and also see if you can find the line on the pavement outside that marks the finish line in the original stadium.

Then leap ahead 42 years by merely hopping on to the tube, changing at Bond Street, and arriving at one of the most hallowed sporting grounds in the world: Wembley Stadium. The new stadium is, to be fair, kind of rubbish. The Wembley Arch that looms over the stadium is good to look at but, like the queen, is of little practical value.

With no money to construct a village, male athletes were put up in air force bases, and female ones in London college dormitories. The Empire Stadium, as it was then called, is of particular importance to Indian sports fans as it was here, in 1948, that independent India won its first Olympic gold medal, in men’s field hockey.

If you happen to visit outside the Olympics season, check ahead to see if there are any sporting events taking place at any of the venues inside and around the new Wembley Stadium. Tickets are often cheap, and even obscure sports are fun to watch with crowds. Even if you get bored out of your wits, you are only a few minutes away from the many tantalizing delights of ChennaiDosa, Wembley’s finest south Indian restaurant. Indeed, in moments of weakness, many a London Tamilian has been known to rate it higher than the more well-known Saravana Bhavan in far away East Ham. Sacrilege? Maybe. Sambar vadai? Definitely.

Today, Great Britain is one of the strongest nations in Olympic cycling, with several celebrity cyclists in the team. Herne Hill’s modest concrete track, complete with abandoned grandstand, has played an important role in the development of that prowess.

But today there is much to see, do and eat in the Stratford, Canary Wharf and Docklands areas of London. Indeed, for those with a keen eye for history, the Docklands are rich with it. It is here that boats laden with goods came to replenish the coffers of empire. It is here that labourers, unloading sharp bundles of sugar cane on their backs, bled rivulets of crimson down Blood Alley. It is also here that thousands of Lehman Brothers employees were princes one day and paupers the next.

You can see, smell and Instagram all this, thank the gods, without ever being too far away from a fresh pulled pint, freshly manhandled guacamole, or a freshly ruined chicken tikka masala.

And now you may go buy your Kate and William cups. Go on. The Olympics are on. Nobody will notice.

Write to lounge@livemint.com

Also See | Trip planner / London (PDF)