Plan You Best First Trip to London!

What? Plan? 

2019 (c) Sondra Singer

Westminster, near the Abbey, Parliament, and Big Ben
2018 (c) Sondra Singer

Again, we are the Boomers Traveling As Cheaply As Possible!

If you've been planning your first trip to London for a little while, and you're one to plan ahead, you probably already have a few destinations planned. Depending upon your preferences, there are so many choices, that it's almost impossible to do everything. So, I recommend narrowing down your destinations before you go. Leave yourself some flexibility. Don't plan every moment, because, for instance, the sun might be shining (and in London, you would definitely want to be outside on a sunny day), so you might want to trade a museum for a Thames cruise!

1. I always start with a book or two. Yes, an actual book. That way, you can mark it up, put sticky notes in it for your favored choices, etc. I particularly like Rick Steves for European travel, but have also had good luck with others. You can also download audio tours to listen to as you walk around, once you decide your priorities.

One of the books we used, Rick Steves' London

2. I go to the bookstore and actually look inside before purchasing, rather than going online. That way, I can make sure that the emphasis of the book, the pictures, etc. match ME. Some books are meant for families, some for Millenials. For me, Rick Steves is usually the guy. Emphasis matters.

3. Size matters. If you plan to walk around with your new book, make sure it's compact! If you want more detail, do that kind of research before you leave home and take the portable version with you to save on weight.

This post is about London but this strategy also worked for Paris (to be discussed later!)

Lists Help Avoid Conflict :-)👫

List your preferred activities before you go, making sure you are also taking into account your travel partner's desires (this is beyond important!). In our case, I'm an arts lover - museums, theater. And history.  My boyfriend loves history (so we come together on this one) and architecture. Sometimes, you can get lucky, and your interests converge in one place! See Shakespeare's Globe, below!


Many museums are free in London, so you can plan those on the fly pretty easily, which is not the case in, say, Paris, where there are long lines, so it paid for us to buy a Museum Pass there. We chose not to purchase the London Pass after talking with our hotel host. We'd have had to rush through everything and go a lot of places quickly, for that to pay for us. Since museums are mostly free in London, the London Pass is probably better for families who need a different array of and more activities than we, the seniors, trying to save money!

Our plans changed a lot, largely because of weather. We'd only really planned one day, a tour to Stonehenge and Bath. And, we wish we hadn't planned that in advance, because that was the coldest, wettest day. I know this goes against what most guides tell you. But, at least in early April, this worked for us!

10 Days in London

Here's a sampling of sights we visited while in London for 10 days. It was our first trip there together, so there is nothing out of the ordinary in this list, and for people with similar interests, this might be helpful to you. In no particular order:

1. Original Bus Tour (to get the lay of the land) - we purchased two days. The second day was the cruise, which was included, and discussed below. The only on-off bus I have liked in Europe thus far was in Vienna. Vienna's routes were laid out well, and buses ran on time. Not so much in London, and especially not in Paris.

We both love to take sightseeing cruises - we had good experiences with these both in Paris and London. And, we lucked out. Our best weather day was the one on the boat to Greenwich on the Thames. Original Tours has an agreement with City Cruises. You can also go to them directly. We had a fabulously entertaining guide going both directions. We heard the same jokes twice, but that was fine. They were good jokes. Felt like we were on the Monty Python cruise!

City Building and Gull, from Thames Cruise, 2019 (c) Sondra Singer

2. National Gallery (Rather than try to see every museum of art, we landed on this, in the center of Trafalgar Square, so there's more to see in the area, including the street performers and art in the square). There is also a wide variety of art here, including a room with some wonderful Van Gogh paintings. There are some more obscure artists there, who are also well worth the look, including William Hogarth's Marriage A-la-Mode series. Very funny! Art isn't ALL serious! Choose what kind of art you want to see once you look at the museum map. Otherwise, you can get lost in there!

Trafalgar Square with National Gallery
2019 (c) Sondra Singer

William Hogarth from his series, Marriage A-la-Mode at the National Gallery

3. British Museum (largely for history, but also art) - Even more important for this museum, plan which kind of history you want to see, don't try to see the whole thing. It's worse than eating an elephant!  We chose Egypt and Central America, and only saw some.Where we were was extremely hot, probably for preservation, but having to wear warm clothes for the outside, proved unwieldy and distracting. We might have spent more time there if we didn't have all the outer clothing to deal with.

Aztec Double-Headed Serpent, British Museum

4. Tower of London and Tower Bridge - So much history at the Tower of London - please know a lot of it is war history, and of course, the Crown Jewels. We didn't pay to go onto the Tower Bridge, just walked across it. I'm sure the view is better on the upper level where you pay, but remember, we are economy travelers!

The Tower of London
2019 (c) Sondra Singer

Tower Bridge
2019 (c) Sondra Singer

5. We weren't going to do it, but, yes, we went to Westminster Abbey. My boyfriend kept looking at it, and he LOVES church architecture. So, he sprung for that entry fee on a cloudy chilly day. Get ready for lots of memorials, elaborate tombs. And, markers with famous names. There are around 3,000 people buried in this church! My favorite part of this church was Poet's Corner. Very exciting to see all the placards for poets and writers that were either buried or memorialized, such as Shakespeare, Dickens, and Austen. Hint: The most affordable gift shop we found in London, though small, was here.

Courtyard at Westminster Abbey
2019 (c) Sondra Singer

6. The next day, we walked over the Millennium Bridge to Shakespeare's Globe Theater. My boyfriend went, as his concession to me, since I went with him to Westminster Abbey. It's a relatively new replica of the original, and he just thought he was indulging my Shakespearean theater fantasies. I paid for these tickets, as this was my indulgence.

Shakespeare's Globe

He was disappointed to find out that we were too early in April to actually go to a play in the Globe itself. HOWEVER, it turns out that the history and the process of recreating that building to be exactly like the original, absorbed him. The story of the American actor, Sam Wanamaker, whose decades-long determination got it rebuilt, was also fascinating. We were lucky enough to walk into the theater and see parts of a tech rehearsal in which one of the characters was in costume, and being lifted as if flying!  Since it was a tech rehearsal, our guide was also able to talk and answer questions for us, and he was obviously also an actor!  In addition, this venue offers occasional demos of how layered Shakespearean costumes were put on (using audience members), sword fighting, and the like. There is a whole museum there about Shakespearean theater, tech, and the process of building the new building. Highly recommend this as a 1/2 day, and not just on a cloudy day! As tickets go in London, this wasn't as expensive as other choices.

Costume used at Shakespeare's Globe

7. Stonehenge and Bath. We did a tour, which I talked about a bit in a prior post. We didn't get enough time at either destination, and this was our WORST weather day, cold and pouring. Had we not purchased the tour tickets in advance, we could have been more flexible and gone other days. I would either do what my parents did, years ago, and brave renting a car and staying overnight around both locations, or taking trains and buses, not a tour. See my prior post for more info.

Roman Bath at the City of Bath
2019 (c) Sondra Singer

Stonehenge
2019 (c) Sondra Singer

8. Walk - Just find an area you want to explore, and start walking. You can always get the Underground or a bus or a taxi if you wander too far. We saw a couple of parks, Buckingham Palace, walked along the Thames, etc. by doing this. Very enjoyable and free!

While Walking Near Our Hotel in Hammersmith
2019 (c) Sondra Singer

8. Theater - You can get discount tickets the day of. Look up TKTS. It's a standalone building in Leicester Square. You have to go in person. Check their website that morning to see what they have available and pricing. Give yourself at least two options in case they sell out the play you want to see. We got a great deal to see The Play That Goes Wrong. That show is now on Broadway, too. Very very funny, slapstick, and very British! It was another rainy day, so this was the perfect way to spend a Sunday afternoon, a decision made that day.

TKTS Building for Discount Theater Tickets
(from their official site)

9. For shopping, we went to a Saturday market, the famous Portobello Market, which was packed with people. It was fun, but we couldn't take it for too long because of the crowds. We saw some wonderful looking produce and baked goods. We found unique, locally created souvenirs, I found some inexpensive jewelry, collectibles, antiques, and we saw some beautiful woven goods, as well.  We also went to the Greenwich Market, which was open the day we took the Thames Cruise. That was more contained, with both booths and shops.

At Portobello Market
2019 (c) Sondra Singer

10. Finally, we have to recommend the Museum of London. We learned that "London" is actually a relatively small area of the city. Westminster, where Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, the Houses of Parliament, and Buckingham Palace reside, are in the City of Westminster, for example. There are also the boroughs of Kensington and Chelsea, Hammersmith, Fulham, Wandsworth, and more. The Museum of London, which we learned about in the Rick Steves book, walks you chronologically through the ages, from prehistoric times, through Roman occupation, and after independence from the Romans through to the 20th Century. We spent too much time on ancient London and had to rush through the 1800's and 1900's, which is where they have some wonderful exhibits, replica of streets, time-lines, and memorabilia. Go! They ask for a small donation, but you also get a great book when you donate. It's actually the easiest museum to get through, as it's so well laid out. We got some duplication on history we'd already learned, but it was still very interesting.

 

From the Women's Suffrage Exhibit, Museum of London

Please know that we would have loved to have gone into Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament, but they are under construction, being propped up so as not to fall into the river! Had we not gone during Easter Break, we might have still been able to tour Parliament for free, but since Parliament wasn't in session, we would have had to pay, and it probably wouldn't have been as much fun without the politicians yelling at each other!

Big Ben and Houses of Parliament, as they were in 2018
2019 (c) Sondra Singer

Then there is food. I don't get the British love affair with smashed peas. So, I did a separate post on that!

There is SO much to see in London. We didn't even get to the walking tours we wanted to do, like the Rock n' Roll tour or up to see Abbey Road. Next time!

Boomer Travel: Google Maps, The Metro, Underground, On Off Bus, and More!

Public and Other Transportation Stories, Good, Bad, and Ugly

2018 (c) Sondra Singer

I've had interesting changes of "direction" the past few years, as I've learned how to best get around cities in Europe. Much depends on the city, it's volume of traffic, availability of public transportation, etc. as well as who we are and our comfort level with each mode of getting around.

Driving?

We don't do well driving in strange cities, even here in the U.S. So, you can bet we don't rent cars in foreign countries!  If you're daring enough to do it, let me know how that works for you. We like to leave the driving to those who know where they are going! Especially if we are in a country that drives on the "wrong" side of the road!  We get lost easily enough when we are driving around the U.S.!

Drive? I don't think so. Let the locals do it!

On/Off Buses and Tours?

I used to think that I HAD to get the "lay of the land" first by taking some kind of tour, like an on/off bus, early in a trip. That is changing based on experiences and the layout of different cities.

My first trip, 4 years ago, I went with 3 other people who had varying degrees of mobility. For that group, in at least one city, Vienna, the Hop On Hop Off Bus was the best option. However, Vienna is the only city so far, where that was my main and best mode of transport, because the company we used knew the city well, had well-laid-out routes that ran frequently, and had frequent connecting points for different routes. So, even though I was limping around with a cane and still in recovery from a broken ankle, the buses got me close to my destinations, and also got the rest of the group around to drive by the sites they wanted. I wanted a more in-depth experience than they did, and that bus company served us all well. We also stayed in the Museum District, which gave us excellent access to those buses, with a stop just down the hill from our hotel.

Street in Vienna from the Hop On Hop Off bus

However, on that trip, we also did a day tour (not an on/off bus) in London, and that tour was a complete disaster. Had it been a Monty Python movie, it would have been funny to watch, but it was real! The tour guide obviously hated his job, hated tourists, and had a generally BAD attitude. For example, even though we had older people and less mobile people on the tour, he made no allowances, and often threatened to leave people behind. He'd walk up ahead fast, speak fast, then move on again, never waiting for people to catch up. At both the Tower of London and Buckingham Palace, where we actually got off the bus, I'm sure he left people behind intentionally. We were supposed to have a guided river tour as part of the day.  However, he put us on what turned out to be a commuter river taxi, with no commentary, no guiding at all. He brought us on board, then went to the bar until it was time for us to get off. If you decide to do a tour like this, ask a lot of questions first. We trusted our travel agent. Perhaps in this case, we were just unlucky enough to get a guide who wanted to get fired, so did everything he could to make that happen!

From the river taxi. Our guide was in the bar, so this was the only site we recognized...

Yes, this is the man who should not be a tour guide...in front of where we had a lovely High Tea...without him...

More Recently...

Do your research. Read reviews, and talk to people who have gone to the cities where you are traveling, as well. In Paris, last year, we had a bad experience with an on-off bus company there, Open Tour. I booked through Viator, which I will avoid in future.  Open Tour was not good that week in April, 2017, in part because of the intense traffic in Paris, in part because the buses just didn't run regularly.  They apparently decided after we booked, to run winter hours when we were told (and the website stated) specifically that by the time we arrived, they would be on summer schedule (later and longer hours). It finally made sense when we saw hastily posted signs that they were running winter hours for an additional week. No explanation by those hawking the buses on street corners. Plus,the routes themselves were lackluster. We had to give up on using them by the 2nd day of 3 that we'd paid for. We couldn't even use the voucher for the Seine River cruise from that company after waiting an hour to board, and ended up having to buy a different cruise.

In Paris, public transportation is a much better option. Same with London. And, in Dubrovnik, you have to walk. Period.

Our Favorite Option to Get Around

I changed my expectations and planning in Paris last year, when we discovered Google Maps.  As long as there is Google Maps on my phone, this is now the best option for us to get around easily in many cities. If you know what you want to do on a particular day, after researching your travel books, you can get to your destinations with ease using Google, especially in cities that are spread out, have a lot of traffic, and have good public transportation.

It knows where you are, right? So, when you plug in your destination, it will let you know several options for getting there, depending upon your starting point. In both Paris and London, it will give you walking, public buses, and public train options, including estimated time for each leg of your journey. You can choose based upon your preferences. You get options for walking, walking to stations, etc. and you can even drill down to how long it will take to get through each leg. You may have to change trains, but it will show that, as well.

Google Maps example. Just put your destination in your smart phone, and you'll get options for getting there.

In Paris last year, we used the Metro more, but also found that a public bus was a better option on one journey, getting us to within walking distance to our hotel. On that little jaunt, we had a fascinating discussion with a woman on that bus about politics and religion! I know, we shouldn't have, but we did anyway. That, I've noticed, is harder to do on a train. Maybe we were just lucky, but I think that discussion got us all out of our "bubbles" and getting to know a person from a different country a little bit. It was close in time to their Presidential election, so it was enlightening hearing from a woman who had different political leanings than we did, what she was thinking.  It was all innocent conversation, and very cordial.  If you can keep your conversations friendly, I recommend this.

We didn't have any such conversations on London public transport, but perhaps it's because we didn't ride a public bus there.

Car Services

The other modes of transport, obviously are cabs, car services, and Uber. There is a lot of controversy around Uber in London at the moment. After seeing how potentially contentious this was, and also seeing that there was really no difference in cost between Uber and a car service, we used Adams Car Service to get from and to the airport. We could have taken the Underground back to the airport, but it was unclear how much walking we might have to do to our terminal (you have to do a lot of walking just to get to and from a flight at the international terminal at Heathrow already). So, we decided to make life a bit easier and take the same car company we'd taken to get into the city.

Plan to do a lot of walking, if you are able-bodied. You'll see more and have more options, as well. Plan to be somewhat adventurous and flexible, as well, if you travel a bit extemporaneously, as we do. It's also much cheaper to walk than to pay for any other form of transport. Especially in London!

The Metro and the Underground

On that front, Paris was expensive for some things, but not for transportation. The Metro is cheap compared with the London Underground. In both cases, you can buy tickets ahead. In Paris, you can buy books of tickets and use them as you go. In London, you buy an Oyster card (a 5 pound refundable deposit gets you going) and it's easy. You just reload that with money when needed at convenient ATM-type machines in the stations. It's just more expensive to get from point A to B in London, no matter what. However, you can get refunded up to a point when you're ready to leave, and it's all on easy-to-use machines at the stations.

Paddington Station in London

Dubrovnik

I was in Dubrovnik 4 years ago.  There were public buses to get to destinations, then you walked. Since Dubrovnik central is a walled city within the city, there are no cars. It's not that big, but with a recovering broken ankle, I just took my time and rested a lot.

Approaching the walled city in Dubrovnik from the public bus.

Walking above the walled city of Dubrovnik.

Outside The City

If you want to go outside the city, that's another story. I know people who rent cars but that's not us. I generally don't like tours because they never give you enough time at each destination. But, that's what we did to go to Stonehenge and Bath.

Stonehenge in the Rain

I chose a Premium Tour to just these two destinations because it seemed to give enough time - morning at Stonehenge, afternoon at Bath. But, in fact, in neither case was it enough time to explore, shop and also eat in a restaurant. Thankfully, we brought snacks from our hotel, and just toured what we had time for.  In future, I might do more research on taking trains and buses, but my concern was that we wouldn't get up early enough in the morning to have enough time at the destinations anyway. So, for us, the tour was good enough this time. More on those destinations in a later post.

I hope you find this helpful as you plan your trips, Boomers, and others who want to travel As Cheaply As Possible!

In Service,
Sondra