Arrival till Jewel sails Saturday
What’s Here
Icy Jewels bus to Harwich information
London gets it’s name from the ancient name of Londinium. There is some controversy over whether this was a Latin or Celtic name and also as to whether London was founded by the Romans or if it existed on a small scale before that. The Romans invaded Britain in AD43 and built a wooden bridge close to the East side of where London Bridge now stands around AD50. Famously Queen Bodecia led an attack on the City around AD60 and took the city from the Romans, burning the City to the ground in the process. It took about a decade for London to rise again and by AD140 it became the capital of Britain or what at that time was known as Britannia. Formerly Colchester, England’s oldest known city, had been the capital. London was still yet to grow into anything like the huge bustling cosmopolitan City we associate it with being today and between the years 410 (the end of the Roman occupation in Britain) and 560 became almost deserted by the population. The true birth of the modern London did not begin in earnest until the Anglo-Saxons settled there around the year 600. The Anglo-Saxons actually settled in Lundenwic, an area about 3/4 of a mile from the original Roman London in what today is called Aldwych.
Webcams
Most visitors to London looking for a sightseeing holiday will look for accommodation in the central and Western postcodes. When it comes to London tourism these are the areas most often talked about and visited. These include WC1 Bloomsbury, WC2 Holborn, NW1 Camden, W1 West End, SW1 Victoria, W2 Paddington, NW8 St. Johns Wood , NW3 Hampstead, W11 Ladbroke Grove, W14 West Kensington, W8 Kensington, SW7 South Kensington, SW6 Fulham, SW10 Old Brompton and SW5 Earls Court. In terms of attractions, shopping, things-to-do, famous areas, these areas have the largest density. However London is so much larger than this in reality.
Don’t forget to set your watch to Greenwich Mean Time for the UK, which is one hour behind Continental European Time and five hours ahead of US Eastern Seaboard Time. From March to September clocks go forward an hour (“summer time”).
Heathrow is about 15 miles due west of central London. Harwich is about 60 miles NE of central London. The trip between is over 100 miles.
Links to London Info
London Podcasts
Getting around London by public transport
Maps
- Transport for London – official subway maps
- Too-cool animated subwaymap!
- All the maps in the world!
- Huge London Underground map
Using the Underground
Single trip tickets are rarely the best value for you, even if you’re only planning on making a single journey. More commonly you’ll find that one day or multi-day travel cards offer savings when you’re considering multiple journeys over one or more days. And, for most people, most of the time, an Oyster card is by far the best solution in terms of both convenience and value.
You must have an appropriate ticket for every journey. No rides are free. You will need to use the ticket to be admitted in through the automatic barrier gates at the start of your travel and then you will need to use the ticket a second time to be allowed to leave through similar gates at the end of your journey.
Most of the time, you’ll be using a ticket with a magnetic stripe. You feed the ticket in to the gate (through a slot on the right hand pillar) and the machine reads it to confirm your ticket is valid, and then feeds it out through a second slot. Take the ticket and go through the barrier gate (which will open for you when you remove your ticket).
If your ticket was for a single journey and you’re leaving a station at the end of the journey, the barrier gate will not return the ticket to you, because it has now been used up.
Note that you can feed your ticket into the barrier gate as soon as the person before you has taken their ticket back. You don’t need to wait for the person to get through the gates and for them to close again.
If you’re talking about a journey on the tube, everyone refers to the different lines by their name (eg, ’the Bakerloo line’, ’the Piccadilly line’), not by their color or number (the lines are colored, but aren’t numbered, unlike some other cities).
Try and be courteous and make using the system convenient for everyone. If a train is crowded, move into the middle of the carriage, even though this is away from the doors. At the station before your stop, go with the flow of people toward the exit doors and then stop by the door, and so when it is your stop, next, you’ll be able to easily exit.
If waiting for a train on the platform, when the train arrives stand to the side of the doors to make it easy for passengers to get out of the train first.
The simplest way of calculating Underground travel times in central London is this :
- Allow ten minutes for your journey
- PLUS two minutes for each stop the train makes between the start and finish of your travel
- PLUS five minutes every time you need to change trains
This simple calculation will usually prove accurate, plus or minus a few minutes.
London Travelcard v Oyster Card
Both cards cover most of the public transport available to you:
The entire London Underground network.
The entire London bus network.
The overland rail network
Docklands Light Railway (DLR)
33% discount on river services
It is much better to buy a day travel card of London Transport (5.60 pounds for one adult) and to take the buses. Bus number 11 goes via the Westminster Cathedral, the Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Parliament, Trafalgar Square, Aldwych, St Paul’s (for the Tate Modern also), etc. It is a very nice sightseeing.
Oyster Daily Fare Capping
One of the clever things about the Oyster card is that it will limit your total ticket cost in a single day to just under what you’d pay for a one day travelcard. So, if you have an Oyster card, there’s really no reason to buy travelcards, but instead, you can simply use your Oyster card and it will automatically limit the amounts it deducts from its balance to the equivalent of 50p less than buying a one day travelcard. The card intelligently computes what the lowest applicable one day travelcard cost would be based on the journeys you take during the day.
Limitations of Oyster The fare capping only works on a daily travelcard basis. It doesn’t then extend to multiple day travelcards. And it also caps separately for the buses and the underground, so if you’re planning on using both, you’re better off with a paper one day travelcard (that covers travel on both buses and the Underground).
Another downside to using an Oyster card is you need to first buy the card, which costs £3 to purchase. So unless your total savings are going to exceed £3 by using the Oyster card, there’s little point in making things more complicated than they otherwise need to be.
But these days the £3 cost of the card will be made up after only two journeys, so it is no longer an important issue. Most people who will be making several journeys will stand to easily save the cost of their Oyster card, and can continue to use this card on future visits to London too.
Buses: London’s famous red buses are very frequent and for those ready to invest in understanding the route map very rewarding and cheap. A great value bus pass is available.
Underground: For most visitors to London the defacto method of getting about, in surveys many tourists rate it a highlight of their visit. Can be very crowded and hot in the summer. Best to purchase a Travelcard, the London travel pass – see below.
River: Comparatively lightly used, by locals as well but there is a small network of scheduled river services along the Thames. Memorably services to Tower of London, Greenwich and Hampton Court. Travelcards (see below) get half price fares.
Tour Buses: The hop-on hop-off double-decker tour buses are now found in most cities throughout the world. It all started here, there are now two competing services. Enormously popular with visitors this is the way to get orientated with London on your first day.
Travelcard: The simple to use travel pass for London providing unlimited travel on bus, underground, DLR and rail network. The pass is available in many time frames from a day to a week or year. Comes with many good 2 for 1 admission offers to the major sights.
Oyster Card: The high tech electronic alternative to Travelcard. The card of choice for residents of London providing the lowest cost and convenient basis for using London’s public transport on a regular basis.
Thames Clipper Review
I live in London and have used all of the various companies and advise you to avoid Thames Clippers at all costs. They have the best routes and their boats are pretty good but they oversell tickets so you usually have to wait for over an hour to get on a boat and sometimes they refuse to let you off at a scheduled stop. Their staff are unpleasant and aggressive without exception.
Getting Around
Bus number 11 is probably the best for taking in the sights. It runs from Fulham Broadway to Liverpool Street via Victoria and takes in Westminster, St. Pauls etc.. Sit on the top deck.
The Tube is a good way to travel if you have to be somewhere in a hurry. But for a tourist, I find that the regular buses are better because you get to sight-see as well. I am fond of finding a route and then riding it to the end. But that’s if I have lots of time.
Oyster Card
I just returned from London and we used the Oyster card exclusively for our daily transportation around London. The first day we arrived at Heathrow we went to the Underground ticket office and bought Oyster cards. I had typed up a list of all the trips (including peak vs. non-peak travel time) we planned to take on the tube prior to our trip down to Harwich for our Baltic cruise. I handed it to the agent and he was able to quote me to the pound, how much I needed to load on the Oyster card. We used it on our return trip, after our cruise, to get us from Liverpool Street station back to Heathrow. We then returned to the underground ticket office at Heathrow and received our 3 pound deposit minus the 20 pence we had gone over! We never had to stand in line at the tube and found the Oyster card the best invention almost since sliced bread!
You cannot pay by cash on the bus in Central London – you can buy tickets at the stop. Get an Oyster Card – 2 or 3 journeys and you have covered the deposit and then you are ’quids in’ as we Brits say!
Travelcard vs. Oyster card is very complex. Oyster is guaranteed to be cheaper than Travelcard on an adult, transport only basis. Be aware that with your Oyster card it price-caps on a daily basis (like a one-day travelcard). If you start your use after 09:30 Monday to Friday it is about half the cost compared with starting before 09:30.
The London Underground is the best public transportation option. Possibly the most comprehensive subway system in the world. Buy an "Oyster Card", which is a prepaid, discount card, and it’s really the only way to get around
Suggestions
Being in London, one of the most expensive cities in the world on one of the tightest budgets in the world, I’ve been learning how to navigate London while spending as little money as possible. If you ever find yourself here on a tight budget, here are some free things to do in London:
Get a Free Map. The tourist office charges £1 for a map but if you grab the pamphlets from the walking or bus tours they contain maps. Also, the Museum of London gives away a map for free if you ask. The Lonely Planet maps can sometimes be hard to read and these map give you a good idea as to where the location of all the sites and underground stops are without having squint at a book. (Elenor’s note: I’ve put links to various online maps around the site.)
Visit Museums. Most of the museums in London are free- the Museum of London, the British History Museum, the Natural History Museum, and the Science Museum are all free. Get your fill of British history without spending a pence!
Visit an Art Gallery. The good news is that not all museums and other visitor attractions charge an entrance fee. A few are completely free, including such notable places as the British Museum, the Imperial War Museum, the National Maritime Museum (in Greenwich), the National Gallery and the Tate Modern.
Buy an Oyster Card. This may not be free but for 28 pounds, you get a unlimited usage of the bus and trains. I’m not sure why they call it an Oyster card. It’s not shaped like one.
Buses are cheaper than the tube (underground). If you are making more than two tube journeys in a day, Travel Cards are good value. They are also valid on buses and the Docklands Light Railway (but not before 9:30am on weekdays). Carnets, with 10 Zone 1 tickets, and pre-pay Oyster cards also save you money.
Food
After much research we finally got it right. Our London cab driver took us to the place the cabbies go to. They are lined up for a few blocks. This place was fantastic! It’s called
Masters Super Fish
Address 191 Waterloo Road
London
SE1 8uX
tel 020 7928 6924
All I can say is the traditional cod fillet platter was 7.25 GBP and was well worth it. My husband got the superbites.. Huss haddock & plaice.. all with fresh " chips" which are wonderful! They also put pickles & onions on the table before our meal came out.
I eat at Masters regularly but Faulkners of Kingsland road Dalston is definately the best fish and chip restaurant in London,although a bit far east of central London.
That’s what we also liked. Masters is right off the waterloo (metro) tube. Very easy. Maybe a 2 block walk.
I work in London, and many of us from the office use this place:
Rock & Sole Plaice 47 Endell Street, Covent Garden, London, WC2H 9AJ
It is about 5-10 minutes walk from Covent Garden/Leicester Square/Trafalgar Square, so it is really central. The price for takeaway (so you can wander ’round eating your supper, looking at the lovely Covent Garden!) is around £5-6 for fish and chips, or around £2 for a bag of homemade English chips, cut fresh from whole potatoes! It has been there years, I first went about 20 years ago, and can highly recommend. They also have a restaurant where you can sit in and eat.
Walking Tour
Map Key
1 – Big Ben/Parliament
2 – St Margarets
3 – Jewel Tower
4 – Deans Yard
5 – Westminster Abbey
6 – Central Hall
7 – Cabinet War Rooms
8 – Cenotaph
9 – Downing Street
10 – Banqueting House
11 – Horseguards
12 – Buckingham Palace
13 – Duke Yorks Column
14 – ICA
15 – The Citadel
16 – Admiralty Arch
17 – Trafalgar Square
18 – National Gallery
19 – Portrait Gallery
20 – St Martins
21 – Festival Hall
22 – London Eye
23 – County Hall
24 – Florence Nightingale Museum
London Reviews
The Reubens is terrific. Across the street is a pub, ’Bag O’ Nails’ which is great fun. While there, don’t miss the Queen’s Gallery which is adjacent to Buckingham Palace and has interesting exhibits from the Royal Collections. The HOHO bus stops at the Queen’s Gallery. You are right across the street from the Mews and you can see the wonderful carriages.
We frequently took the Tube (however, it is crowded, hot and sweaty, but it gets you from place to place quickly).
The major sights are actually quite close together so if you cannot find a private tour guide, we have Hop On/Hop Off buses plus local transport is excellent and very frequent and not forgetting the underground which is well signposted. Day travel passes are available.
I was just thinking about London and thought I’d share a wonderful little museum that I visited on my last trip there. It’s Sir John Soane’s Museum next to Lincoln Fields. Sir John was a world traveller and habitual collector of art, antiquities,etc. which he brought back to his home which is wonderfully jammed packed (wall to wall, floor to ceiling) with his treasures. Quality, great collection. Hard to believe how he cleverly found space for everything & still have a habital home. He has some very remarkable paintings including Hogarth’s famous series of paintings "A Rake’s Progress" which are not only beautiful art...but a hoot to boot. If you’ve never come across this while in London, you might check out www.soane.org. Limited access due to small size, but the line was not long.
I know of at least 3 airports that serve London. None are terribly far out. Heathrow is West, Gatwick is South & I think Stansted is North, maybe Northeast. Stansted might be the closest to Harwich. But for London, any would do I think. I’ve used Gatwick before. 2 weeks ago I was put on a direct flight to Heathrow out of Philly when weather problems caused me to miss the Philly to Rome flight, so I know there’s a Philly to Heathrow flight each evening that arrives early next AM in Heathrow.
If you have the time in the evening check out the Jack the Ripper walk given by the below company, they meet at the tube station at the Tower of London, Tower Hill. Two hours and very inexpensive but fun... Believe it is 7:30P.M. everynight. Wear a hat, I was christened by a bird on the top of my head... http://www.walks.com/
Money
The British currency is still pounds Sterling. There are 100 pence in each pound. Notes come in denominations of £5, £10, £20 and £50. Scottish bank notes are also legal tender. Coins come in denominations of £2, £1, 50p, 20p, 10p, 5p, 2p and 1p.
Changing Money
Money and travellers cheques can be exchanged at banks, bureaux de change offices, hotels and post offices. Watch out for excessive rates and commission. Always ask what the commission is first and refuse to pay over two percent. Post offices usually offer free commission but their rate may not be as competitive.
Banks typically open Monday to Friday 09:30 – 17:00 and some branches are open until midday on Saturdays. All banks are closed on public holidays, so check your dates carefully. In many cases, it is cheaper to use a credit or debit card in a cash machine (see below) than to change money at a Bureaux de Change.
Cash Machines
By far and away the most convenient way to get your hands on money in London is by using one of the thousands of cash machines (or ATMs as they are known in the US) found all over the city. They are situated inside and outside all high street banks, in supermarkets, shops, railway and bus stations and even – rather dangerously – in some pubs and bars. Be warned though, cash machines not situated in or outside banks often charge £1.50-£2 per transaction. There are plenty that don’t.
They allow cash withdrawals on all major credit cards and Maestro debit cards. If you are using foreign bank cards your bank will charge you, so you should check how much this will be and the approximate exchange rate before you leave.
Public Phones
London’s traditional red phone boxes are now tourist attractions in their own right. Most phone boxes take coins and credit cards and phone booths with a blue stripe across them also offer free access to LondonTown.com’s events guide, hotel booking facility and directory of shops and services.
Pictures
