PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION
Swanton British Travel Service LLC
PO Box 7398
Wilmington. DE 19803-0398
PO Box 7398
Wilmington. DE 19803-0398
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EXAMPLE DAYS ON PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION
A few ideas of just how much you can accomplish.
NOTTING HILL PORTOBELLO MARKET & CANTERBURY IN THE SAME DAY.
Breakfast at hotel. Went to Portobello Market (street market with lots of antiques, jewelry, and foods) and Notting Hill neighborhood. Unusual. Got there by walking to Pimlico Tube, Tube to Oxford Circus, Change to Notting Hill Line, walk to market then around and over to neighborhood houses. Tube back to Oxford Circus to St. Pancras & St. Pancras Train Station to Canterbury. 1.5 hour tour of Canterbury Cathedral was good. We went to Even Tide 3:15 service in the Abbey of Canterbury Cathedral. 40 minutes. All male choir including young boys singing soprano and alto and men singing men's parts. We sat next to a member, who afterwards gave us a ride to St. Augustine's Abbey ruins, and the St. Martin's Church, the oldest parish church in England. He was extremely nice and friendly. Ate at the Strada Italian restaurant, across from the main Cathedral entry gates. He told us it was the best place to eat. Came back on train to London (St. Pancras station). Back to hotel on Tube.
CHARTWELL & LONDON IN 1 DAY
Breakfast at hotel. Walked past Westminster Cathedral to Victoria Station. Train from Victoria to Seven Oaks Station. Bus 9:53 a.m. to Chartwell. Saw Chartwell. Ate lunch. Back on bus. Seven Oaks train station to Victoria Station then to Charing Cross Station. Walked down Whitehall past Horse Guards past 10 Downing Street over to War Rooms and Chuchill Museum. Visited War Rooms. Walked by park. Westminster Abbey for 5:45 organ recital and 6:30 service. Got on doubledecker bus. Rode it to both ends. #88 including Campden Town at top end and Clapham Commons at bottom end. Dessert at hotel.
CAMBRIDGE & DUXFORD DAY OUT FROM LONDON
By train from Kings Cross Station via Stevenage to Cambridge. Learned the story of the Cam Bridge. Punting on the river. "The Backs" (no longer "The Back Sides" after Queen Victoria). Walking tour of Cambridge University including King's College Cathedral. Over to Duxford Air Base Museum by taxi when realized bus would take 56 minutes. Went through Duxford museums quickly. Saw the Air Space building. Saw the U.S. Air building, including its tribute to the U.S. air efforts in WWII in the form of the glass wall outside showing symbols for the 6,300+ aircraft lost by the 8th Army Air Force and the 30,000+ men lost by the 8th Army Air Force from bases in England. Maps showed where they were based in England. Very windy and cold out on the Duxford field. Figured out too late that 4:37 was the last bus back to London. Got taxi. Split bill with a student from Italy, one from Spain, and the Italian student's father.
LONDON & OXFORD IN 1 DAY
Walked to Westminster Abbey and Shop, St. Margaret's Chapel, Parliament. Bought stuff in Westminster Abbey shop, walked back to hotel. Taxi, told driver to take us by St. Paul's cathedral and Wesley's Chapel and the Bunhill Fields Cemetery across the street on City Road. He took us by and let me get out and take pictures at both St. Paul's and the City Road Wesley places. Taxi driver pointed out numerous other sites along the way including Charles Dickens' house and Sherlock Holmes statue. He told us about Greenwich, which is where he lives. 25,000 taxi drivers in London. It takes an average of 3.5 years' of study to get the license to be a London taxi driver. He then took us to our actual destination for the taxi ride, which was Paddington Station. Paddington to Oxford. Walked from station to hotel. Checked in. Went to Tourist Information center. Traveled to & from Blenheim Palace by bus S3. Saw Blenheim Palace. Went to Turf Tavern for supper. Walked back over to train station to get times for going to Stratford-Upon-Avon, etc., but the information desk was closed.
ESCORTED DAY TOUR OF THE COTSWOLDS
Took local escorted tour with 7 other people in the van including us and 5 others. So we toured the Cotswolds. Taynton. Bourton on the Water (=Little Venice). Upper and Lower Slaughter. Stow-on-the-Wold. Stanway. Stanton. Broadway (a stop for afternoon tea, Chipping Campden. Moreton-in-Marsh. Chipping Norton. Woodstock. Rode through Blenheim Palace grounds even though it was already closed. Saw some things we had not seen on our visit the previous afternoon, including riding by the butterfly house and secret garden. Rode out through a different exit gate. Got back to Oxford at 6:30 p.m. Ate supper at an extremely popular burger place.
OXFORD IN DEPTH
Breakfast at hotel. Travel Information Center at 9:30. Another "Official Oxford Shop" Bought stuff. Bought Oxford University tour for 10:45 a.m. Went on the tour. Then ate at University Church. Walked down to Christ Church College. Hall of Christ Church College. (Harry Potter; painting of John Wesley; paintings of lots of other famous people). The church. Prayer by woman minister. Walked out and went down walk through meadow of Christ Church College. Isis River (Thames). Blackwell's Bookshops. Ashmolean Museum. It is a fantastic museum. Walked to see Eagle and Child Pub. Got taxi to Binsey Village and The Perch. Walked to Binsey Church (St. Margaret's Church) and Alice's Well at the church, which had been recommended to us. A beautiful place. Out of the way. We were too tired to walk down there, but we did walk most of the way back, on a very narrow road. Got a bus ride the last portion of the way back, after getting close to Oxford. Supper at Eagle and Child, where C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien frequented. Steak and ale pie. Cornish pasty. Cauliflower tart. Chicken pie. Roast potatoes. Warm chocolate brownie and ice cream.
HOW TO PUT THAT LAST DAY TO GOOD USE WHEN YOU ARE STAYING AT THE AIRPORT
LONDON & GREENWICH & THE BRITISH MUSEUM
Breakfast at hotel. Taxi 7:40 a.m., to meet 8:02 train arriving at to Paddington about 9:25. Paddington to Victoria. Crowded Tube. 7 stops to Victoria. Victoria to Gatwick via Gatwick Express Train. Left 10:30 a.m. Arrived 10:59 a.m. Taxi to our airport hotel. Bus back to airport. Gatwick Express train back to Victoria. Going back: Gatwick to Victoria Station. Tube to Tower Hill. Docklands Light Rail (DLR) to Island Gardens via Canary Wharf (the Manhattan of London). Walkway under the Thames River to Greenwich. Went in Visitor Center. Went to Trafalgar Tavern. Lunch there, on the river, in the place that Charles Dickens frequented. Walked around Royal Naval Academy. Prince Charles went to school there. It is now the University of Greenwich. Went in Chapel and Painted Hall. Got info from one of the staff about the Painted Hall. Largest painting in UK. Royal Maritime Museum. Walked by the Queen's House, built for her by the King after she got mad and would not speak to him because he got mad at her and swore at her in public because she had accidentally shot his favorite hunting dog. Walked through the meadow and up the big hill to the Royal Observatory where the Greenwich Mean Time and the Zero Meridian of Longitude are. Stood on 0 meridian longitude. Got our picture taken by people in line behind us. Walked down and through town. Got on boat to Embankment Station via Thames River. Got off and went to Embankment Tube. Up to Tottenham Court Road Station. Off and walked to British Museum. 5:55 to 8:05 p.m. Walked back to Tottenham Court Station. Tube to Oxford Circus Station. Switched there to Victoria. Victoria got on Gatwick Express. 9:00 a.m. left Victoria. 9:30 to Airport. Bus to hotel.
A DAY ON THE ISLE OF WIGHT USING PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION
Asked the night before about buses down to Town Quay and was told to take a taxi which could deliver me to exactly the right spot. Looking at the map of Southampton it looked only slightly farther than the distance to the train station which I was already comfortable with. Started out walking on Wednesday morning after breakfast and finally got to what is called the "Bus Center" - indeed there were lots of bus stops, but very few buses. Asked somebody there and was told which buses went down to the Quay, but none of them departed in time for me to make a 9 a.m. ferry to IOW. Continued walking, and when I got to the water the Red Funnel line office was right across the street. Bought a day return ticket - turned out my coupon was for the high-speed ferry that went to West Cowes and I wanted to get to East Cowes so I took the slower car ferry. Enjoyed the ferry ride of almost an hour and reviewed my notes about the buses on the island.
It wasn't clear to me where the first bus would stop so I ended up crossing the street, in the midst of traffic coming off the ferry and then had to re-cross the street. A bus came down and turned around, but wouldn't stop for me. By the time I ran up the street to the actual stop it had already gone. Waited about 10 minutes and a #4 bus came along. I bought a Day Rover ticket (10 GBP). It let me out just in front of Osborne House. [Enjoyed the tour of the "House" - I'd call it a palace myself] Went back to the road and waited for a bus - conversed with a woman from Chicago who was visiting London and had come down for the day to scope out a trip for her family at Christmas time - she was going to the east coast of the island so we got onto different buses. Took a #5 to Newport. When I got off the bus I asked the driver about the "Roman Museum" - his opinion was that it wasn't worth it - a small mosaic under the floor of a shop. Since I had planned to go to several other Roman sites on the trip I decided to take his advice and use the time until the #7 to Carrisbrook to buy a sandwich for lunch. Turned out the store had just opened and was doing especially nice sandwiches to establish their reputation. Told the driver on the #7 I wanted to go to Carrisbrook Castle and when we got there she told me to walk up the street a block or two and look for Castle Street on the left. So far so good - the street turned into a path that went up hill, and then went UP hill and even further UP the hill. [Turned out the exertion was well worth it and the castle itself (I ate my sandwich in the garden) was fascinating.] One of the guards told me of an easier path back to town, but her instructions were fuzzy so I ended up going down the very steep path back to the road. The #7 was late so I didn't have to wait as long as I had anticipated. However, by the time it got to Yarmouth, the bus was quite late and EH was not admitting anybody else to the Yarmouth Castle. Wandered around a little and then got on the hop-on, hop-off open top bus that went to the Needles - a spectacular point at the southwest corner of the island. Since there was only one more bus after this one, I decided not to hop off at all, but did very much enjoy the scenery from the top level of the bus. When the tour bus returned to Yarmouth there was about 15 minutes before the 15:07 bus back to Newport, where I could catch a #5 back to the ferry terminal in East Cowes. When the #7 bus finally showed up at 15:25 it had not yet done the full route (Bus comes into Yarmouth from Newport and then does a big circle down the southwest side of the island and returns through Yarmouth to Newport. There was a group of 5 who were also waiting for the bus to Newport and we all decided to get on this bus rather than stand around in Yarmouth until it came back again. We got to talking and turns out they were a painting group who were staying on the island for a week, to explore and to paint. They told of their adventures and I told some of mine. When the bus got to the Needles there were at least 50 people waiting to get on, so we were all very glad that we already had seats. By the time the bus finally got back to Newport, now one whole hour late, they had missed the last bus back to Shanklin and were going to take a taxi. They were concerned about me, but I assured them that the #5 was still running back to East Cowes. In fact I caught a bus with only 2 minutes to spare and was soon back at the ferry terminal. I decided to eat on the ferry since it was now 7:30 p.m. and I had had only a sandwich and a small chocolate bar all day. Food was hot and filling, but nothing fancy. By the time I arrived back in Southampton it was dark and I asked one of the staff on the boat about taxis. The woman I asked, who appeared to be "in charge", at least others were bringing her money from the vending machines and from the cafeteria, wanted to know where I needed to go and when I said Jury's Inn she said she was taking 2 co-workers home and her route went right by there. So I got to chat with some of the ferry workers, including a young woman who had come from Spain three years ago to do this job. Returned safely to the hotel with lots of happy memories of a beautiful day.
A few ideas of just how much you can accomplish.
NOTTING HILL PORTOBELLO MARKET & CANTERBURY IN THE SAME DAY.
Breakfast at hotel. Went to Portobello Market (street market with lots of antiques, jewelry, and foods) and Notting Hill neighborhood. Unusual. Got there by walking to Pimlico Tube, Tube to Oxford Circus, Change to Notting Hill Line, walk to market then around and over to neighborhood houses. Tube back to Oxford Circus to St. Pancras & St. Pancras Train Station to Canterbury. 1.5 hour tour of Canterbury Cathedral was good. We went to Even Tide 3:15 service in the Abbey of Canterbury Cathedral. 40 minutes. All male choir including young boys singing soprano and alto and men singing men's parts. We sat next to a member, who afterwards gave us a ride to St. Augustine's Abbey ruins, and the St. Martin's Church, the oldest parish church in England. He was extremely nice and friendly. Ate at the Strada Italian restaurant, across from the main Cathedral entry gates. He told us it was the best place to eat. Came back on train to London (St. Pancras station). Back to hotel on Tube.
CHARTWELL & LONDON IN 1 DAY
Breakfast at hotel. Walked past Westminster Cathedral to Victoria Station. Train from Victoria to Seven Oaks Station. Bus 9:53 a.m. to Chartwell. Saw Chartwell. Ate lunch. Back on bus. Seven Oaks train station to Victoria Station then to Charing Cross Station. Walked down Whitehall past Horse Guards past 10 Downing Street over to War Rooms and Chuchill Museum. Visited War Rooms. Walked by park. Westminster Abbey for 5:45 organ recital and 6:30 service. Got on doubledecker bus. Rode it to both ends. #88 including Campden Town at top end and Clapham Commons at bottom end. Dessert at hotel.
CAMBRIDGE & DUXFORD DAY OUT FROM LONDON
By train from Kings Cross Station via Stevenage to Cambridge. Learned the story of the Cam Bridge. Punting on the river. "The Backs" (no longer "The Back Sides" after Queen Victoria). Walking tour of Cambridge University including King's College Cathedral. Over to Duxford Air Base Museum by taxi when realized bus would take 56 minutes. Went through Duxford museums quickly. Saw the Air Space building. Saw the U.S. Air building, including its tribute to the U.S. air efforts in WWII in the form of the glass wall outside showing symbols for the 6,300+ aircraft lost by the 8th Army Air Force and the 30,000+ men lost by the 8th Army Air Force from bases in England. Maps showed where they were based in England. Very windy and cold out on the Duxford field. Figured out too late that 4:37 was the last bus back to London. Got taxi. Split bill with a student from Italy, one from Spain, and the Italian student's father.
LONDON & OXFORD IN 1 DAY
Walked to Westminster Abbey and Shop, St. Margaret's Chapel, Parliament. Bought stuff in Westminster Abbey shop, walked back to hotel. Taxi, told driver to take us by St. Paul's cathedral and Wesley's Chapel and the Bunhill Fields Cemetery across the street on City Road. He took us by and let me get out and take pictures at both St. Paul's and the City Road Wesley places. Taxi driver pointed out numerous other sites along the way including Charles Dickens' house and Sherlock Holmes statue. He told us about Greenwich, which is where he lives. 25,000 taxi drivers in London. It takes an average of 3.5 years' of study to get the license to be a London taxi driver. He then took us to our actual destination for the taxi ride, which was Paddington Station. Paddington to Oxford. Walked from station to hotel. Checked in. Went to Tourist Information center. Traveled to & from Blenheim Palace by bus S3. Saw Blenheim Palace. Went to Turf Tavern for supper. Walked back over to train station to get times for going to Stratford-Upon-Avon, etc., but the information desk was closed.
ESCORTED DAY TOUR OF THE COTSWOLDS
Took local escorted tour with 7 other people in the van including us and 5 others. So we toured the Cotswolds. Taynton. Bourton on the Water (=Little Venice). Upper and Lower Slaughter. Stow-on-the-Wold. Stanway. Stanton. Broadway (a stop for afternoon tea, Chipping Campden. Moreton-in-Marsh. Chipping Norton. Woodstock. Rode through Blenheim Palace grounds even though it was already closed. Saw some things we had not seen on our visit the previous afternoon, including riding by the butterfly house and secret garden. Rode out through a different exit gate. Got back to Oxford at 6:30 p.m. Ate supper at an extremely popular burger place.
OXFORD IN DEPTH
Breakfast at hotel. Travel Information Center at 9:30. Another "Official Oxford Shop" Bought stuff. Bought Oxford University tour for 10:45 a.m. Went on the tour. Then ate at University Church. Walked down to Christ Church College. Hall of Christ Church College. (Harry Potter; painting of John Wesley; paintings of lots of other famous people). The church. Prayer by woman minister. Walked out and went down walk through meadow of Christ Church College. Isis River (Thames). Blackwell's Bookshops. Ashmolean Museum. It is a fantastic museum. Walked to see Eagle and Child Pub. Got taxi to Binsey Village and The Perch. Walked to Binsey Church (St. Margaret's Church) and Alice's Well at the church, which had been recommended to us. A beautiful place. Out of the way. We were too tired to walk down there, but we did walk most of the way back, on a very narrow road. Got a bus ride the last portion of the way back, after getting close to Oxford. Supper at Eagle and Child, where C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien frequented. Steak and ale pie. Cornish pasty. Cauliflower tart. Chicken pie. Roast potatoes. Warm chocolate brownie and ice cream.
HOW TO PUT THAT LAST DAY TO GOOD USE WHEN YOU ARE STAYING AT THE AIRPORT
LONDON & GREENWICH & THE BRITISH MUSEUM
Breakfast at hotel. Taxi 7:40 a.m., to meet 8:02 train arriving at to Paddington about 9:25. Paddington to Victoria. Crowded Tube. 7 stops to Victoria. Victoria to Gatwick via Gatwick Express Train. Left 10:30 a.m. Arrived 10:59 a.m. Taxi to our airport hotel. Bus back to airport. Gatwick Express train back to Victoria. Going back: Gatwick to Victoria Station. Tube to Tower Hill. Docklands Light Rail (DLR) to Island Gardens via Canary Wharf (the Manhattan of London). Walkway under the Thames River to Greenwich. Went in Visitor Center. Went to Trafalgar Tavern. Lunch there, on the river, in the place that Charles Dickens frequented. Walked around Royal Naval Academy. Prince Charles went to school there. It is now the University of Greenwich. Went in Chapel and Painted Hall. Got info from one of the staff about the Painted Hall. Largest painting in UK. Royal Maritime Museum. Walked by the Queen's House, built for her by the King after she got mad and would not speak to him because he got mad at her and swore at her in public because she had accidentally shot his favorite hunting dog. Walked through the meadow and up the big hill to the Royal Observatory where the Greenwich Mean Time and the Zero Meridian of Longitude are. Stood on 0 meridian longitude. Got our picture taken by people in line behind us. Walked down and through town. Got on boat to Embankment Station via Thames River. Got off and went to Embankment Tube. Up to Tottenham Court Road Station. Off and walked to British Museum. 5:55 to 8:05 p.m. Walked back to Tottenham Court Station. Tube to Oxford Circus Station. Switched there to Victoria. Victoria got on Gatwick Express. 9:00 a.m. left Victoria. 9:30 to Airport. Bus to hotel.
A DAY ON THE ISLE OF WIGHT USING PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION
Asked the night before about buses down to Town Quay and was told to take a taxi which could deliver me to exactly the right spot. Looking at the map of Southampton it looked only slightly farther than the distance to the train station which I was already comfortable with. Started out walking on Wednesday morning after breakfast and finally got to what is called the "Bus Center" - indeed there were lots of bus stops, but very few buses. Asked somebody there and was told which buses went down to the Quay, but none of them departed in time for me to make a 9 a.m. ferry to IOW. Continued walking, and when I got to the water the Red Funnel line office was right across the street. Bought a day return ticket - turned out my coupon was for the high-speed ferry that went to West Cowes and I wanted to get to East Cowes so I took the slower car ferry. Enjoyed the ferry ride of almost an hour and reviewed my notes about the buses on the island.
It wasn't clear to me where the first bus would stop so I ended up crossing the street, in the midst of traffic coming off the ferry and then had to re-cross the street. A bus came down and turned around, but wouldn't stop for me. By the time I ran up the street to the actual stop it had already gone. Waited about 10 minutes and a #4 bus came along. I bought a Day Rover ticket (10 GBP). It let me out just in front of Osborne House. [Enjoyed the tour of the "House" - I'd call it a palace myself] Went back to the road and waited for a bus - conversed with a woman from Chicago who was visiting London and had come down for the day to scope out a trip for her family at Christmas time - she was going to the east coast of the island so we got onto different buses. Took a #5 to Newport. When I got off the bus I asked the driver about the "Roman Museum" - his opinion was that it wasn't worth it - a small mosaic under the floor of a shop. Since I had planned to go to several other Roman sites on the trip I decided to take his advice and use the time until the #7 to Carrisbrook to buy a sandwich for lunch. Turned out the store had just opened and was doing especially nice sandwiches to establish their reputation. Told the driver on the #7 I wanted to go to Carrisbrook Castle and when we got there she told me to walk up the street a block or two and look for Castle Street on the left. So far so good - the street turned into a path that went up hill, and then went UP hill and even further UP the hill. [Turned out the exertion was well worth it and the castle itself (I ate my sandwich in the garden) was fascinating.] One of the guards told me of an easier path back to town, but her instructions were fuzzy so I ended up going down the very steep path back to the road. The #7 was late so I didn't have to wait as long as I had anticipated. However, by the time it got to Yarmouth, the bus was quite late and EH was not admitting anybody else to the Yarmouth Castle. Wandered around a little and then got on the hop-on, hop-off open top bus that went to the Needles - a spectacular point at the southwest corner of the island. Since there was only one more bus after this one, I decided not to hop off at all, but did very much enjoy the scenery from the top level of the bus. When the tour bus returned to Yarmouth there was about 15 minutes before the 15:07 bus back to Newport, where I could catch a #5 back to the ferry terminal in East Cowes. When the #7 bus finally showed up at 15:25 it had not yet done the full route (Bus comes into Yarmouth from Newport and then does a big circle down the southwest side of the island and returns through Yarmouth to Newport. There was a group of 5 who were also waiting for the bus to Newport and we all decided to get on this bus rather than stand around in Yarmouth until it came back again. We got to talking and turns out they were a painting group who were staying on the island for a week, to explore and to paint. They told of their adventures and I told some of mine. When the bus got to the Needles there were at least 50 people waiting to get on, so we were all very glad that we already had seats. By the time the bus finally got back to Newport, now one whole hour late, they had missed the last bus back to Shanklin and were going to take a taxi. They were concerned about me, but I assured them that the #5 was still running back to East Cowes. In fact I caught a bus with only 2 minutes to spare and was soon back at the ferry terminal. I decided to eat on the ferry since it was now 7:30 p.m. and I had had only a sandwich and a small chocolate bar all day. Food was hot and filling, but nothing fancy. By the time I arrived back in Southampton it was dark and I asked one of the staff on the boat about taxis. The woman I asked, who appeared to be "in charge", at least others were bringing her money from the vending machines and from the cafeteria, wanted to know where I needed to go and when I said Jury's Inn she said she was taking 2 co-workers home and her route went right by there. So I got to chat with some of the ferry workers, including a young woman who had come from Spain three years ago to do this job. Returned safely to the hotel with lots of happy memories of a beautiful day.
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