Oh, No, Not Another Trip Report - for England and Wales

Great so far! Don't worry about the length - we've had longer

sounds very interesting, can't wait for your next installment..

Is this your first trip to London? If so, you did a great job of figuring out oyster cards, bus routes and the importance of arriving early to visit the major sights.

Glad you enjoyed Wicked. We saw it while in London last month and thought it was great. I was a bit worried as several critics seem to enjoy panning it. But what do they know?

Looking forward to more. The cost saving informtion is certainly helpful.

assure:

I never seem to get tired of reading these reports on England and Wales.

Did you enjoy your English breakfast other than the baked beans?

Looking forward to more of your trip report.

Sandy

Oops - having HTML problems at the moment.

October 20th – Switched to scrambled eggs, toast and yogurt this AM, and took off early on #24 once again for Westminster Abbey. We arrived before the 9:30 opening time, and walked out on Westminster Bridge for photos of Big Ben, Parliament, the Eye and other London icons. When we entered the Abbey we went straight to the desk and signed up for the first verger’s tour of the day. This turned out to be one of the greatest things that we did on the entire trip! Our verger, Benjamin, was so interesting and informative; this great building’s history truly came alive. Do the verger’s tour…it’s SO worth it. And again, go early; as when we came out of the Abbey at around 12:30 the line (excuse me, I mean queue) was a couple of blocks long.

Next up was the Cabinet War Rooms and Churchill Museum; this was especially interesting for my husband, the WWII buff, but I enjoyed it as well. The 2 for 1 admission worked here as well, and saved us 11 GBP…if you’re keeping track, that’s a total of 36.50 GBP saved! Really made the 7-day travelcard/Oyster deal worthwhile.

Bus #24 then delivered us right back to our door. We rested a while, then took the tube to Earl’s Court to meet my niece and tour her London neighborhood and flat. Tube was very crowded with excited rugby fans, as tonight was the big international rugby game in Paris between Britain and South Africa. We visited with my niece, had dinner at a Gourmet Burger Kitchen, and then rode home – tube was very crowded with sad rugby fans, as Britain lost the match.

October 21st - This morning we rode the bus to Tottenham Court Road, then got off and walked a few blocks to the British Museum. The museum was very impressive, particularly the spectacular glass-roofed Great Court. A great many people waited in line for tickets to see the Chinese Terracotta Warriors. We contented ourselves with the highlights of the regular collection – Elgin marbles, Assyrian rooms, Rosetta Stone and Sutton Hoo discoveries. We left the museum about 12:30 and shared a baguette and soda for lunch at a shop near the Russell Hotel (which made us start humming tunes from the musical “Cats”.) Then on to the British Library, where we viewed everything from the Magna Carta to Beatles’ lyrics in the Treasures room. The Library is another spectacular piece of architecture, particularly with the huge ornate red brick pile of St. Pancras’ station looming up behind it.

Finally, we tubed to Covent Garden, which was jammed with people on this pleasant Sunday afternoon. We visited St. Paul’s (Actor’s Church) and watched the buskers, and the people watching the buskers. Then we met my niece again and spent a pleasant evening over Guinness at the Lamb and Flag Pub (licensed during the reign of Elizabeth I!). So our last evening in London passed very pleasantly, before a walk back to Trafalgar Square and a ride home on trusty #24.

There was so much we didn’t get to do in London! Never set foot on the South Bank, for example; we just plain ran out of time. But we will be back.

Here are a few things that surprised me about London: 1) People here were exceptionally friendly and accessible. That famous British reserve? Never saw it. 2) The city is filled with energy and purpose, and in that way reminded me more of Manhattan than other huge European capitals, like Paris and Rome. 3) There are advertisements for prostitutes inside those classic red phone booths!!!

Next up – York by train.

Most interesting! Can't wait to read more.

October 22nd – Bid farewell to the friendly folks at the Luna & Simone, and took one last ride on #24 to Victoria Station. Rode the packed Victoria Line tube to King’s Cross. We were way early, so we had a look around at Harry Potter’s Platform 9 and ¾.

The 100 mph train ride from London to York was another highlight of our trip. Our one-way fares to York were less than 10 GBP each (purchased in advance from the GNER web site); this seemed like an astounding bargain to me. We found our seats with some difficulty, since the car that was marked with an “F” on the outside was marked with an “E” on the inside. We were more than ready to mark this problem up to our own stupidity, but just about everyone boarding the car had the same difficulty.

The ride to York passed very quickly, in conversation with our amiable tablemates – a French woman living in York, and a Londoner bound for Aberdeen who had grown up in Rhodesia. I was so impressed with British rail service, having suffered on a few long-distance Amtrak trips that arrived many hours late. We got to York right on time, and walked 10 minutes to our lovely B & B, the Carlton House. Our room was very nice, had 10’ ceilings, and we were happy not to have to knock one another out of the way en route to the bathroom.

We walked into the city center and were delighted with most everything we saw. We had thought we would try Betty’s Tea Room but the line was out the door, so we ended up having plates of practically flavorless roast chicken at a place in Stonegate. We arrived at the Minster in time to tour the church and the wonderful Undercroft with its Roman and Norman ruins beneath, and when we came up we were privileged to hear a choir performing the Evensong service…such ethereal music in such a sanctified setting gave me goosebumps!

Near dusk, we left the Minster and wandered home via the Shambles. The brightly lit shop windows were lovely in the twilight and yielded some great photos.


October 23rd – The topic for today on the morning news show was “Badgers – cute or evil?”; a subject that’s hardly ever discussed on “Good Morning America.”

After a great breakfast at our hotel, we had planned to go to the York Castle Museum; but the day was too brilliant to spend indoors, so we walked the city walls, the Shambles, the street market and elsewhere taking way too many pictures, until it was time (shudder) to pick up our car. At the train station, we were introduced to our Fiat Punto. Both my husband and I have owned Fiats before, and this one had the typical Fiat finicky gearbox so that finding second gear was challenging at first. But soon we were on our way, headed west on the A59; husband driving as I yelped and screeched at the nearness of stone walls, hedges, parked cars and what have you. I think it is disconcerting to be a passenger sitting on the side of the car where the driving wheel should be…you feel you should be in control of the car, but you definitely are not. Anyway, nothing bad happened and a couple of hours later we were at our destination, Haworth.

We had chosen Haworth because we thought it would make a not-too-taxing “first drive” destination, and because we enjoy Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights and were interested in visiting the Brontes’ hometown. We arrived at our B&B at 4 PM and made our way up the hill to the Bronte Parsonage Museum, arriving at 4:25 vs. a stated last admission time of 4:30. But the docent at the door said that we couldn’t possibly have enough time to tour the museum, and we could tell she really wanted to go home, so we contented ourselves with touring the church, graveyard and Haworth’s single main street. This is a very atmospheric place of gray stone and mossy slate roofs, surrounded by the bleak and desolate moors – you can see why the Brontes were inspired to write such grim tales. We took lots more photographs and finally stopped in at the jolly “Fleece” pub for good roast beef sandwiches.

Our room at the Old Registry Inn (called “The Lilac Room”) was very cute and very purple. My 6’2” husband had to “mind his head” to avoid crashing into the low ceilings.


October 24th – We had a great “Yorkshire style” breakfast at our hotel, then paid a visit to the steam railway station down the hill which was used during the production of “The Railway Children”. Then off to the west in our Punto, which had acquired quite a few nicknames by then. This was probably one of our most challenging driving days, as we traversed tiny narrow “B” roads where the local traffic seemed to be going impossibly fast, and then huge motorways which actually felt more comfortable to us, since we are used to multiple-lane freeways and urban traffic. Once we reached North Wales the A55, a dual carriageway, was easy and fast, and we were soon at our destination, the Bryn B&B in Conwy.

We thought we had met nice people up to now in Britain but Allison, the innkeeper at Bryn, was almost impossibly nice and funny and smart and generous. She let us use her phone, her laptop, and her fridge, did our laundry, and gave great tips about local sights and restaurants. Our room at Bryn overlooked the city walls, Conwy Castle, the estuary and Mount Snowdon…we were transfixed!

We took a tour of gray, forbidding Conwy Castle with a guide, and learned a lot about the construction and defenses of Edward I’s fortifications against the fierce Welsh. Then we had a good dinner at the Allison-recommended Dawson’s Bar, at a former coaching inn called the Castle Hotel.

Next - more of Wales

Loving your report. You arrived on the day I left. London is glorious, isn't it?

>>The topic for today on the morning news show was “Badgers – cute or evil?”; a subject that’s hardly ever discussed on “Good Morning America.”<<

I love it! Great trip report, Azzure - I'm looking forward to reading the rest.

Lee Ann

Just one point, the defeated rugby team was England, not Britain.

I have always found Londoners very pleasant.
I was there recently and travelled on buses a lot.
It was noticeable that the elderly or people with small children were never allowed to stand for too long.
Somebody would soon offer them a seat.

Great report. You certainly managed to pack a lot in in a relatively short time.

azzure:

So glad you got the breakfast sorted.

We recently attended Evensong at the Minster along with about 100 others. Very uplifting indeed. My dad was a wood carver (a lost trade) and although those benches you sit on are beautiful they certainly are not very comfortable on your back. No danger here of nodding off.

Tell us more about the cost of B&B's, meals as you go. Always a huge help to all planning a visit.

Thanks for sharing.

Sandy

Thanks to all for your kind replies! Josser - sorry about the rugby team mix-up; you can tell I'm not really sports-aware. Sandy, on your question about costs, I can tell you that we never spent more than about 15 GBP on any restaurant meal...but my husband and I are not big eaters, and we often share a meal (maybe with two salads) if we can.

On the hotel/B&B costs so far, these were the tabs per night:

Luna & Simone, London - 85GBP
Carlton House, York - 70 GBP
Old Registry Inn, Haworth - 65 GBP
Bryn GuestHouse, Conwy - 60 GBP

Sorry about all the "GBP"s; I used to know how to HTML the "pound" sign but have sadly forgotten...

You may be interested to know that the badger issue has still not been settled and is still a very hot topic.

£ is made by pressing ALT and the numbers 156 on your number pad.

I have enjoyed your trip report immensely - many of the same places I have visited, and it's always nice to revisit with a new perspective!

Have just returned from a hol in US and was surprised at how much eating out cost, and stated in my report that eating out in the UK (once you get out of London) need not break the bank.

Lovely reading all the nice things you're saying about the UK, it is a wonderful country and I for one love living here.

It may seem strange us debating Badgers etc in UK but thats what i love about the British, our eccentricity, especially towards animals, long may we care..

I think you have a lovely manner and a really interesting way of writing, your reports leaves one wanting more...

Testing - £!! Thanks a lot!

Thanks to everyone for your responses; I will try to write more today (though I believe I'm actually expected to accomplish something at work today grumble grumble).

The badger issue is quite serious because they carry bovine TB.
The debate is about whether they should be killed in many parts of the UK. At the moment they are a protected species
http://tinyurl.com/24vg2q

October 25th – After a great breakfast at Bryn, we took a quick walk around this incredible walled town. We walked the city walls and the waterfront, taking a quick look at “Britain’s smallest house.” Allison had recommended a visit to Plas Mawr, a perfectly-preserved Elizabethan townhouse, but (as usual) we were short on time, as we had a luncheon engagement down the road in Bethesda, near Bangor.

A long time ago, when I was a young Beatlemaniac, I wrote regularly to my Welsh “penfriend”, Heather, in Bethesda. I still have some of the letters and they are fairly embarrassing, being devoted to such topics as Will Paul Marry Jane Asher and Doesn’t Ringo Have Pretty Blue Eyes. Anyway, Heather still lives in the same huge stone house in Bethesda, and we were finally able to meet after 40+ years. She is a linguist, teaching Spanish and French to private students and at the university. It was a great afternoon, and of course we lingered for longer than we’d expected, so we arrived at our next sightseeing stop, Caernarfon Castle, just as they were swinging the huge oaken doors shut for the day. Hmmm…this is happening to us a lot!

Back to Conwy for a roast chicken picnic and another moonlit walk, this time through the graveyard of 12th Century St. Mary’s Church…we found the “We Are Seven” tomb that inspired Wordsworth’s poem. Spooky…and very cool.

October 26th – We had to leave Allison and Conwy today; so sad. Our next destination was the Cotswolds and I had a route planned out for us that would have taken us southeasterly on the A5 toward Shrewsbury. But some nice fellow guests had come up from the Cotswolds the previous day, and they told us of a route that would allow us to see more of Snowdonia NP…it was A470 south to Rhayader, then east on the A44. So we followed this route and it WAS very nice; would have been great but this was the day the weather finally decided to close in, so the vistas were not as huge as they might have been. We sustained ourselves with cookies, chips (I mean sweet biscuits and crisps) and apples en route. When we arrived 6 hours later in the Cotswolds (Chipping Campden), we were told that the other route could have been accomplished in 4…again, it was an “oh, well” situation.

OK, Chipping Campden. We stayed at the Bramley House B&B, about a ten minutes walk from the center of town. Remember what I said about Allison in Conwy? Well, David and Jane at Bramley House were equally as nice as Allison…I really couldn’t believe our good fortune in meeting all these wonderful innkeepers. Our room was wonderful and cozy, overlooking the back garden, and with a king size bed. On our arrival, Jane immediately treated us to tea and scones, and dragged out all her maps and hiking books to help us plan the walk we wanted to do the next day.

Then we walked into town, explored a little and stopped at a grocery for another in-room picnic. We loved the honey-colored buildings and the medieval stone marketplace in the middle of High Street.

Next - a Cotswold ramble (with momentary panic)

Enjoying your report very much. And you shouldn't apologize for being thrifty. Personally, I find it refreshing and what most people who travel are interested in.

No time to enjoy this right now (supposed to be working) so just flagging this for later.

Wow - what a fantastic trip report!

Re the Luna & Simone Hotel,

<< . . . quiet and (if possible) views were important to us . . >>

Did your room meet that criteria? Just curious. The rate of £85 sounds very good for London. Was that per room or per person?

Thanks! Re: the Luna & Simone, our room was quiet. The view was interesting to us, though it was mostly of rooftops and chimneys. And yes, the £85 was per room, not per person! A very good deal for London.

October 27th – Jane prepared yet another great breakfast, then wrote down directions to Snowshill, the first town on our planned Cotswold ramble. Snowshill was featured in the Bridget Jones movie, and is absolutely charming – so cute it looks like a Hollywood fantasy of an English village. We took Jane’s “AA 50 Walks in the Cotswolds” book with us, but didn’t take the ordinance map she offered…uh-oh. As we set out on the hike, we learned that directions like “walk one quarter of a mile and then turn right through the orchard and go through the gate in the high stone wall” weren’t exactly helpful given the number of orchards, gates and high stone walls we were encountering. But the day was lovely, with the sun peeking in and out of clouds, and we ran into so many nice people that it didn’t much matter that we were rarely sure if we were on the right path. One of my favorite moments was when we were approached by a sweet friendly horse, who followed us for quite a distance as we walked through his pasture. I used to spend a lot of time with horses and really miss them! Unfortunately, we’d left the apples in the car.

We finally made our way to Stanton, another picture-perfect village, but never did find Stanway, which was to have been the third stop on our loop. In fact, at one point we found ourselves on a high ridge with very little idea of where to head next…I was getting anxious, imagining that we would have to spend the night curled up among the sheep. But finally we spotted Snowshill, and made our way directly there across the fields. I love that hikers have the right-of-way across private farmland in Britain; it makes navigation quite a bit easier. When we got back to Snowshill we found another group of hikers clutching the same AA book we had; they hadn’t found either Stanton or Stanway so we felt a bit better about our wanderings.

We drove back to our wonderful B&B, then walked back into Chipping Campden. My husband had noticed the previous day that every door facing High Street was different and unique, so he took pictures of about 50 doors as we made our way through town. At Jane’s suggestion, we walked to Broad Campden and shared a tasty cottage pie at the Baker’s Arms pub. When we walked back through town, we lingered to listen to a Welsh choir that was performing at St. James Church. At the B&B, Jane had left a slice of layer cake in our room – wow, another perfect day!

October 28th – More fond farewells and off to Bath. Unfortunately, the weather finally got seriously wet on this day. I had planned our route to visit the Slaughters and Bourton-on-the-Water on the way south, but it was raining so hard that we decided to save them for another visit. Finding our way to the B&B in Bath was a little difficult; especially because the drivers of the Volkswagen Polo ahead of us in traffic were even more unsure of themselves than we were and kept stopping suddenly in unlikely (and hazardous) places. When we did get to our accommodations, the Ashley Villa Hotel, it was only 11 am and too early to get our room. That was too bad, because later in the room we found a good walking map of Bath and information about local bus service, which we could have used. But we set out from the hotel and after about 30 minutes recognized that we were near the Royal Crescent.

Taking a tip from both the Fodor’s guide and Rick Steves, we paid £5 each to visit #1 Royal Crescent, which was promoted as “a glimpse inside the splendor of Palladian architecture.” Sorry, RS and Fodor’s; we tried valiantly to appreciate the museum, but it was only 4 rooms and a basement, all behind velvet ropes, with a lot of furniture that seemed to be mostly on loan from the Victoria and Albert Museum (which is free!). My advice would be to purchase the £2 guidebook as you will learn just about as much from it as you would from the visit.

Next we wandered around Bath (it had stopped raining), and ate some snacks on a bench in the Circus. The city center was very crowded with shoppers, and our next destination, the Roman Baths, was crowded too, but still an incredible experience. Besides the awesomeness of the ancient ruins themselves, the museum is very interactive and state-of-the-art. But our favorite things were the actors dressed as ancient Romans who were going about their daily business, and who stayed in character and “in the period” whenever approached by tourists.

And now the time had come for our very last dinner in Britain…I’d like to say we celebrated by having a traditional fish and chips or steak and kidney pie feast, but actually…we had a pizza.

Next...going home and summing up.

Please tell me about the 2 for 1 admission associated with the 7 days Oyster card. Do you know if this will still be in effect when I visit the first week of march?

This is a lovely report, but there's an important point you've slightly misunderstood.

Walkers do not have a right of way across private farmland. In England, there are 120,000 miles of right of way footpaths - mostly across private land. Other than on these footpaths, though, there's no right of way on cultivated land. The recent so-called 'right to roam' legislation extends this right to large, but designated, swathes of uncultivated land but not to farmland.

The point's important, because making the 120,000 mile system work requires a great deal of cooperation from the farmers whose land we have the right to walk over. Trespassing on other parts of their land is unfair to them: it can destroy their crops, upset their animals and damage their hedges. Farmers organise their business on the assumption people and dogs will be in certain fields: we owe it to them to stay out of the fields they haven't organised round our convenience.

Yes, please tell us how & where you got the Oyster card! Great trip report!!

tod: You can get your Oyster card in any tube station . . . . .

Flanneruk: thanks for the clarification. We really did have the impression that one could walk virtually anywhere, at least in the area where our walk took place, but were careful to mind the signs (especially the ones that said "bull in field"!) and close gates behind us.

Babs and Tod: We got our Oystercards at the Heathrow tube station, but as Janis points out, you can buy them at any tube station. The important point as far as the 2-for-1 deal goes is that you must load a 7-day travelcard on your Oyster, and keep the receipt showing the dates for which the card is effective. The Days Out website (www.daysoutguide.co.uk/) will have information about which attractions qualify for the 2-for-1
admission; check it close to your departure date.

Thanks azzure, Will do.

Thanks for the info. One more question, do you need to get vouchers ahead of time for the 2 for 1 attractions or do you just present your 7 day travelcard at the attractions that are participating?

Babs, you will need to print the coupons from the days.out site when they become available. Should have mentioned that before, sorry. I printed six or seven of them but wound up only using three...there are really a lot of attractions in London that will honor them.

You can also take advantage of the 2 for 1 offers if you've traveled to London by train...I have no experience with that, but I'm sure others can advise you.

October 29th – Awww, this was going home day. Still, it was not without its adventures – our first stop after leaving Bath was Avebury. The previous day’s gloom had cleared away and the skies were brilliantly blue once again, with tracings of white clouds here and there…honestly, I wish we had this kind of weather more often in Seattle. We ambled around (avoiding sheep poo) and taking photos of the wonderfully evocative giant stones. The countryside in this area was quite lovely, and the cashier at the petrol station in Fyfield suggested that we have a look at the village of West Overton…a great suggestion, for this uncelebrated little place had a beautiful old church and some really picturesque thatched roof houses, and made a perfect coda to our travels.

In another hour or so we were at Heathrow, where we returned the Punto and negotiated airport security with no problem. We are “carry-on-only” type of people, and had worried a bit about the one-bag rule, since my day bag, the camera bag, and all the gifts and guidebooks we had acquired now had to fit into one bag (each) through security. We solved the problem by bringing along a cheap nylon duffle bag, which we stuffed with all our dirty laundry and checked. (We figured that if the bag was misplaced we could probably survive without our dirty laundry for a while, but the bag came through at the other end of the flight without a hitch.)

I hadn’t been lucky enough to snag the two-across seats on the British Air 747 for the return flight, so we were crammed into a window and middle seat over the wing. The amount of space allocated for economy passengers by British Air is really quite ridiculous; we got up and marched around the cabin several times during the flight in order to avoid pulmonary emboli. But we did have a great travel companion in the aisle seat, a funny lady from Scotland (transplanted to Vancouver) who made us laugh the whole way home, once by “nicking” a bag of peanuts while the flight attendant’s back was turned.

We arrived in Vancouver on time and soon were headed for the I-5 Peace Arch border crossing, on the right side of the road at last. The US customs agent at the border was a bit surly – welcome home. Since we didn’t feel up to driving all the way home at night on no sleep, we took a room at the Quality Inn in Bellingham ($69 including WAFFLES for breakfast). There we had our homecoming in-room picnic: burritos and tostadas from Taco Bell. Yum.


Finances and final thoughts:

Several people seemed to be interested in our costs for this trip. (The last two places we stayed, Bramley House in Chipping Campden and Ashley Villa in Bath, were £65 and £69 per night respectively.)

My rough accounting of everything we spent on the entire 12-day trip is as follows: $1600 for lodging, $300 for admissions and guidebooks (this is one area where we didn’t want to pinch pennies), $630 for transportation (Oyster, car rental, petrol, train tickets), $120 for gifts, and $500 for food. This totals $3150 (I had forgotten in my earlier $3000 estimate that a couple of things, like the car rental and train tickets, were prepaid before we left.) I have no frame of reference to know whether this was very thrifty of us, or just a bit thrifty.

Each time we come home from an overseas vacation we immediately want to go back to that same place again. Last year we were briefly in France, and really wanted to go back and spend more time in France. My niece’s London semester made us decide to go to Britain this year instead, and now we really want to go back and spend more time in Britain. I hope that our time and our finances eventually allow us to grant ourselves all our travel wishes and dreams – I know, everyone does!

We frankly didn’t find all the driving that relaxing, and are thinking next time of using the train more, and maybe only renting cars when necessary for day trips. I know that some don’t think rail travel in Britain is that great, and for you folks I have only one word – Amtrak! So you can expect to see me popping up on this forum in the future, asking questions about planning that kind of a trip. Thanks to all who have been reading this report, and I welcome any comments and questions.

Thanks for a wonderful report! I really enjoyed the way you set it up. Still laughing at the lady swiping peanuts from the cart.

azzure -

Thanks for a very entertaining and informative trip report. Your actual costs are comparable to my estimates for our trip in 2009 (subject, of course, to inflation and the continuing decline in the US dollar), so that is reassuring for me.

azzure:

I haven't heard the term "nicked" for stolen in ages. That must have been a jolly good seat mate.

Thank so much for taking the time to post such a fun informative trip report. You have provided a great deal of useful information for others planning such a holiday.

Sandy

Thanks to all . In addition to "nicking" the peanuts (that was her word for it!), our seatmate also sang Scottish folk songs and kept us informed about the activities of Mr. Bean on her seat-back telly. It was a really nice extension to our wonderful trip.

Azzure, I am going to be in london for a few days at the end of dec and can you explain to me how the travel card works with the oyster and how it saved you money. I will be there for 3 or 4 days and want to see the tower, st pauls, westminster, etc. You said you purchased one for 25 GBP, what all did that get you? Did you have to reload the card? And if you dont mind, what did it end up costing you to enter the attractions? Your advice is much appreciated!

Abhousen - take a look at www.daysoutguide.co.uk/ and you will find a long list of London attractions that provide 2-for-1 admissions. The way to take advantage of these offers is 1) print the coupons from the days.out site before you go,and 2)get an Oystercard loaded with a 7-day travelcard (because travelcards of shorter duration aren't eligible) to use for your London transport. Be sure to have the clerk who issues your Oyster/travelcard print you a receipt showing the dates the travelcard is effective: this is what you will need to show to get the 2-for-1 deal, not the Oystercard itself.

The Oystercards for my husband and myself cost £25 each, or £50 for both (including the tube fare from Heathrow into the city), but we saved £36.50 on admissions by taking advantage of just three 2-for-1 offers. Obviously, the more 2-for-1 attractions you go to the more you will save, but these three (Tower, St. Paul's, Cabinet War Rooms) were all we had time for. If we had had another few days in London, we could have used the cards to even greater advantage.

Looked at from another perspective, utilizing the 2-for-1 offers reduced the cost of our London transport from £50 to £13.50, which was quite a bargain considering the number of times we jumped on the bus or rode the Tube.

Hope this helps.

Just to clarify for abhousen, the travelcard tariff azzure quotes covers tube and suburban rail services in zones 1-2 (which covers all of central London and the inner suburbs), buses in all zones, and gives you one-third off most river trips as well. Putting it on the Oyster cuts out a lot of back-office costs for TfL, so they angle prices to make anything else ruinously expensive. It can also store cash values for add-ons outside the zones of your travelcard, which are much cheaper than if you paid cash.

The kind of savings azzure quotes on the 2for1 deals certainly make the 7-day travelcard cheaper than just getting shorter-term travelcards or pay-as-you-go for 3 or 4 days: provided you make good use of the 2for1 deals, of course.