JOGGING TOURS OFFER HEART-PUMPING WAY TO SEE A CITY’S SIGHTS IN A FLASH
Running tours let tourists see the sights of the world’s great cities while mixing with locals, learning history and burning calories
It’s 6:15 p.m. on a pleasant London evening and Buckingham Palace is teeming with people. It’s not the usual sea of tourists watching the changing of the guards or pressing themselves against the gates in the hopes of catching a glimpse of a monarch.
Londoners are out in force in hats, gloves and fascinators because Queen Elizabeth has just wrapped up one of her afternoon tea parties. In our head-to-toe uniforms of Lululemon and Nike, my running partner Kathleen Fox and I, along with our equally-Lycraclad tour guide Denise Sofia, are feeling badly underdressed.
In our own way, however, we are turning heads, albeit for all the right reasons. We are weaving in and out of this spiffy crowd trying our best not to trip over a walking cane or scuff a party shoe as we head toward St. James’ Park, where Prince William and Kate lived before baby George arrived. We’re only minutes into our City Jogging Tour and already we are being noticed by the throngs.
The well-heeled crowd thins as we make our way past Parliament, the prime minister’s digs on Downing Street and Big Ben, as we make our way to the banks of the River Thames where the majority of our eight-kilometre sightjogging excursion will be spent weaving forth and back across six of this city’s iconic (and a few of the less-iconic) bridges.
Created in response to the multitasking nature of 21st century travellers, City Jogging Tours, along with other similar sight-jogging companies, allow tourists to hit the highlights while simultaneously hitting their daily calorie burning targets. Having both visited London previously, Fox and I were rather resistant to the usual tour options, but knowing that we needed to do something to counteract all the fish and chips and Guinness we had been ingesting, a self-powered aerobic adventure seemed like a brilliant idea.
The truth of the matter is, neither Fox nor I are avid runners, so the prospect of logging nearly 10 kilometres at someone else’s pace was met with some trepidation. Turns out, though, that with Sofia directing our attention from one sight to another and filling us in on London’s sometimes-seedy history, we barely noticed how much ground we’d covered. While this type of tour isn’t for everyone — a certain level of physical fitness is required, though it may not be as daunting as you might think — it does offer tourists a unique opportunity to experience the city like a local.
Not a huge percentage of travellers work exercise into their schedules while they are abroad, perhaps because they don’t think it’s the best use of their limited time. For that reason, while the pathways of the Embankment district were packed with runners, it was clear the vast majority were locals who had just finished up at the office and were fitting in their daily activity while enjoying the fine weather. “I feel like we are part of this town, rather than standing out for all the touristy reasons,” Fox says as we head toward Tower Hill, our final destination.
“It’s also mildly amusing to watch all the double-takes as you two cruise by, ponytails flying in the wind.” Finally our fitness prowess is turning heads for the right reasons.
For me, it’s the tidbits of info you wouldn’t likely hear on a standard double-decker bus tour that left a lasting impression. As we jogged our way across Blackfriars Bridge, Sofia regaled us with a grisly tale of an Italian banker named Roberto Calvi who was found hung from the bridge’s arches in the summer of 1982, $14,000 in various foreign currencies stuffed in his trousers.
Originally the case was written off as a suicide, but further investigation years later revealed that the body didn’t actually hang, but was suspended from a boat below; the work of alleged mafia executioners.
Frankly, once you’ve seen the extravagance of London’s Tower Bridge (not to be confused with London Bridge, which really isn’t much to behold), you’ve kind of seen them all. It’s the gritty insider stories like that of poor Mr. Calvi’s scandalous demise that really sets a land-connecting structure apart. Now that’s the kind of stuff you actually want to hear about a bridge!
Sight-jogging tours have been gaining speed so to speak, across Europe for the last few years and it’s easy to understand why. Whether or not fitness is a priority, hitting the cobblestones at a slightly faster pace than the Bermuda shorts and fanny-pack wearing crowd allows visitors to cover serious ground and collect all the pertinent details quickly — even if they aren’t all that quick on their feet. As an added bonus, there’s also no need for the telltale Lonely Planet guide, when you have a living breathing local running in stride.