GREAT BRITAIN - Best of Europe 2014 - page 758

butmostboatscomewithentertainingcommentary.Athree-hourbicycletourisabout
£20.
Theater: Compared with Broadway, London's theater is a bargain. Seek out the
freestanding tkts booth at Leicester Square to get 25- to 50-percent discounts on good
seats (see here ) . Buying direct at the theater box office can score you a great deal on
same-day tickets, and even the most popular shows generally have some seats under
£20. A £5 “groundling” ticket for a play at Shakespeare's Globe is the best theater
deal in town (see here ) . Tickets to the Open Air Theatre at north London's Regent's
Park start at £12 (see here ) .
Getting Around London
To travel smart in a city this size, you must get comfortable with public transportation. Lon-
don's excellent taxis, buses, and subway (Tube) system make a car unnecessary.
Thehelpful WelcometoLondon brochure,producedbythemayor'sofficeandTransport
for London (TFL), includes both a Tube map and a handy schematic map of the best bus
routes (available free at TFL offices—such as the one in Victoria Station, the TI, and at mu-
seums and hotels all over town). For specific directions on how to get from point A to point
B on London's transit, call TFL's automated info line at 0843-222-1234.
Public-Transit Passes
London has the most expensive public transit system in the world—save money on your
Tube and bus rides using a multi-ride pass. You have three options: Pay double by buying
individual tickets as you go; buy a £5 Oyster card and top it up as needed to travel like a
local for about £1-2 per ride; or get a Travelcard for unlimited travel on either one or seven
days.
Thetransitsystemhassixzones.Sincealmostallofmyrecommendedaccommodations,
restaurants, and sights are within Zones 1 and 2, those are the prices I've listed here; you'll
pay more to go farther afield. Specific fares and other details change constantly; for a com-
plete and updated list of prices, check www.tfl.gov.uk .
Individual Transit Tickets
These days in London, individual paper tickets are obsolete; there's no point buying one un-
less you're literally taking just one ride your entire time in the city. Because individual fares
(£4.50 per Tube ride, £2.40 per bus ride) are about double the cost of using a pay-as-you-go
Oyster card, in just two or three rides you'll recoup the £5 added deposit for the Oyster. If
you do buy a single ticket, avoid ticket-window lines in Tube stations by using the coin-op