Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
A
taxi
from the airport to the City's financial sector
will cost around £20, and take half an hour or so.
TRAIN INFORMATION
For up-to-date information on all train
services and ticket prices, contact National
Rail Enquiries (
T
0845 748 4950,
W
nationalrail.co.uk).
Luton
Luton Airport (
W
london-luton.co.uk) is roughly thirty
miles north of London and mainly handles charter
flights. A free shuttle bus (every 10min) takes five
minutes to transport passengers to
Luton Airport
Parkway station
, which is connected by train to St
Pancras (every 15-30min; journey 25-35min) and
other stations in central London; single tickets cost
around £13.50. All year round, 24 hours a day,
Green
Line
and
easyBus
run the #757 coach from Luton
Airport to Victoria Coach Station (every 20-30min;
journey 1hr 20min), stopping at several locations en
route, including Baker Street. Tickets cost as little as
£2 (or as much as £10) if you book with easyBus
online. A
taxi
will cost in the region of £70-80 and
take at least an hour to central London.
Liverpool Street train stations. There's also a 24-hour
helpline and website for information on all bus and
tube services (
T
0343 222 1234,
W
tfl.gov.uk).
For transport purposes, London is divided into six
concentric zones (plus a few extra in the
northwest), with fares calculated depending on
which zones you travel through: the majority of the
city's accommodation, pubs, restaurants and sights
lie in zones 1 and 2. If you cannot produce a valid
ticket for your journey, or travel further than your
ticket allows, you will be liable to a Penalty Fare of
£80, reduced to £40 if you pay within 21 days. Try
and avoid travelling during the rush hour (Mon-Fri
8-9.30am & 5-7pm), if possible, when tubes
become unbearably crowded and hot, and some
buses get so full they won't let you on.
Arriving by train or bus
Eurostar
(
W
eurostar.com) trains arrive at St Pancras
International next door to King's Cross. Trains from
the
Channel ports
arrive at Charing Cross or
Victoria, while
boat trains
from Harwich arrive at
Liverpool Street. Arriving by train from elsewhere in
Britain, you'll come into one of London's numerous
mainline stations, all of which have adjacent Under-
ground stations linking into the city centre's tube
network. Coming into London by coach, you're
most likely to arrive at Victoria Coach Station, a
couple of hundred yards south down Buckingham
Palace Road from Victoria train station and tube.
The tube
Except for very short journeys, the
Underground
-
or tube, as it's known to Londoners - is by far the
quickest way to get about. Eleven different lines
cross much of the metropolis, although London
south of the river is not very well covered. Each line
has its own colour and name - all you need to
know is which direction you're travelling in: north-
bound, eastbound, southbound or westbound (this
gets tricky when taking the Circle Line). As a
precaution, it's also worth checking the final desti-
nation displayed on the front of the train, as some
lines, such as the District and Northern lines, have
several different branches.
Services are frequent (Mon-Sat 5.30am-12.30am,
Sun 7.30am-11.30pm), and you rarely have to wait
more than five minutes for a train between central
stations. Tickets must be bought in advance from
automatic machines or from a ticket booth in the
station entrance hall. Single
fares
are expensive - a
journey in the central zone costs £4.50 - so if you're
intending to make more than one journey, an
Oyster card
or a Travelcard is by far your best
option (see p.22).
City transport
The city's highly complex transport
system has improved enormously over
the last decade or so. The congestion
charge has reduced tra
c within central
London, and much of the money has
been ploughed into improving the bus
and tube network. That said, London still
has one of the most expensive transport
systems in the world.
Transport for London
(TfL) provides excellent
free maps and details of bus and tube services from
its six
Travel Information Centres
: the most central
one is at Piccadilly Circus tube station (Mon-Fri
7.45am-7pm, Sat 9.15am-7pm, Sun 9.15am-6pm);
there are other desks at the arrivals at Heathrow
(terminals 1, 2 & 3), Victoria, Euston, King's Cross and
Buses
London's famous red double-decker buses are fun
to ride on, with most running a frequency of five to
