Hi everyone,

I am planning my first trip to London and have a couple questions for transportation.

We will be in London for 2 1/2 days and want to get an oyster card for convenience. I know there is a deposit for the oyster card and it's refundable. We will be leaving London to Paris via Eurostar. Can I get the refund at the train station? How do I do that? Any restrictions? I read somewhere that you have to mail the Oyster card to get the refund??

We are staying near Earl's Court and want to board the traditional double deck red bus for sightseeing purpose; riding across the London Bridge. Can anyone recommend a bus route? We can board anywhere in the city, it doesn't need to be around our hotel. I checked http://www.tfl.gov.uk/ but the bus system seems quite complicated.

Thanks for any advice!!

Don't know about the refund as I keep my Oysters for my next trip

From Earl's Court station take the C1 bus toward Victoria, alight at Victoria and take the 211 bus toward Waterloo, at Waterloo stop take the 381 toward Peckham and get off at Guy's Hospital. You will have crossed London Bridge. Not the most exciting thing , IMO, but you';ll be near Borough Market and Southwark Cathedral and they are both worth a stop. Also will be in walking distance to the Eye and South Bank attractions

BTW, all the buses may not be double deckers. The C1 isn't.

You can most assuredly return your oyster card at the booking office in the tube station not the railroad station at St. Pancreas when leaving London via Eurostar.

About a quarter of the buses running in London are double-deckers. Almost all are the relatively recent version, with closing doors and about as much loveability as an Airbus. To get one, go to any bus stop, look at the (very helpful and easy to understand) maps, then get whatever bus turns out to be a double-decker if it's going somewhere that's useful.

There are examples of these conventional, safe, comfortable, double-deckers crossing all bridges, including London Bridge (why does this interest you? The view from Waterloo Bridge is much nicer), and - which might be what you're really looking for - Tower Bridge.

There are still a handful of Routemasters, the door-free, cuddly-looking, lethal, gas-guzzling and bloody uncomfortable double-deckers introduced in 1956 but nonetheless called 'traditional' by the history-challenged. I mean really: if something's younger than most of its users, you can't seriously call it 'traditional'.

They run on routes 9 (Royal Albert Hall - Kensington Road - Knightsbridge - Piccadilly - Trafalgar Square - Strand - Aldwych) and 15 (Trafalgar Square - Strand - Fleet Street - Ludgate Hill - Cannon Street - Eastcheap - Tower Hill. ) Not all buses on these routes are Routemasters: just about 4 an hour. Wait at a stop till a Routemaster turns up, if that's what you want to ride on. Neither route crosses the river: since London's ruled from the South Bank, the rulers are determined these examples of just how hopeless Britain's bus designers were in the 1950s should stay as far away from them as possible.

<<< riding across the London Bridge >>>

I think you mean Tower Bridge - that's the one that looks like a misland castle as opposed to London Bridge which is a lump of anonymous concrete

You can get on number 9 and there are a few traditional double decker bus running. I can only remember it goes through Knightsbridge, Hyde Park Corner, Picadilly and Trafalgar square etc.

Bus routes crossing London Bridge:
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/gettingaro...ridge-2163.pdf
(all normally double-decker apart from the 149 and 521)

Bus routes crossing Tower Bridge (42, 78 and RV1) are all single-decker - and by definition, you don't see much of a bridge you're actually on. You might as well walk across it.

Bus routes crossing Waterloo Bridge (I think almost all are double-decker):
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/gettingaro...loodr-2289.pdf

But again, you get the best views by walking across the Hungerford pedestrian bridges.

Every time somebody brings up the routemasters, I think of a poor Swedish female tourist who arrived in London, got on one of these death traps and as the bus went along, somebody reached in and tried to steal her pocket book. She lost her balance, fell under the wheels and made the term death trap operative.

Good riddance to them. They were very very dangerous. Period.

Thanks everyone for the input. The double decker does not sound as lovely as it looks. It seems more like a thing to avoid.. And for the bridge, I meant the Tower Bridge.

I will keep all the advices in mind. Thanks again.

The new double decker buses are actually quite nice, and indeed the upper deck provides very nice views of whatever street you happen to be traveling down. They may not be cuddly, but they are comfortable, and I quite like the sense that I'm riding along through the treetops and not down in the street level traffic scrum. I notice architectural details on the building rather than the street level advertising as well.

If's a busy time of year or a busy route, you'll have better luck scoring an upper level seat at the beginning of a route.

Don't take Flanner's griping to heart -- the new double-decker buses are just fine and give a good view if you're in the upper deck. The drivers, however, drive like Ernie on the Knight Bus in Harry Potter Movie #3.

Unfortunately, there are a ton of bendybuses in London now, which are completely without charm and just generally suck -- why have a 55-foot long bus on the winding narrow streets of an old European city?