My husband and I are going to great Britain in May 98. We are considering taking a tour with Globus Tours. The specific tour is the Highlights of Britin and Ireland and lasts for 16 days. Has anyone taken this tour with Globus and if so how did you like it? We are planning to stay a few extra days in London at the end of the tour. I would like to purchase a travel card that would allow us to get to all the sites ie Tower of London, Westminster, Madame Tussaud's, and museums and palaces. I saw a reference in another departure lounge response about
Zones. What type of travel card would I need to purchase to cover this large area of travel. Thanks for any help you can give.

You can purchase the Heritage Pass from British Travel Authority, probably in the largest city close to you...LA, Dallas, Chicago, NY, etc. Or, look them up in your phone book and call for all info. The pass used to be very inexpensive, but it now is quite a bit more and you have to stay long enough and do enough sightseeing to make the price worth the cost. We always buy it before we go.

Robbie: Just got back from a wonderful backpacking trip to Europe with my hubby and another couple. Cannot answer your question on Globus but have heard about this company. Shouldn't be that bad. For all the places you've mentioned (zone 1-3 would be sufficient), you just need the daily underground/bus pass available after 9:30am at 3.20 pounds and you have unlimited use for them the whole day. I would also recommend doing the London Walk. We did the "Jack the Ripper" walk and it was fantastic. Do write to British Tourism office nearest to you asking for more information on buses and map as it doesn't come free!!! You'll enjoy London. ann

I just returned from a 19 day Globus tour - "Britain in Depth" which toured England, Scotland & Wales. I can't say enough good things about Globus. They really do an outstanding job! I would say you are certainly considering an excellent company to tour with. There were 44 people on our tour (which is considered a "full" tour, and some of the people had toured with Globus numerous times. We went to London 2 days early, and were very glad we did. We stayed at the Park Court hotel which is across the street from Hyde Park and is a beautiful hotel. Globus offers tours right from the hotel before your "actual" tour begins - we did the Tower of London tour which was great, and also a dinner and evening cruise on the Thames tour which I would say is a MUST DO! We also did alot of walking and exploring on our own, and the hotel was ideally situated for this. The actual tour was wonderful (I'd love to be going again!), and if there is any particular questions I could answer for you, please feel free to email me.

I agree with Ann re the daily pass. We found it to be the most economical way to go. We did practically all of our travel within London by bus so as to see more. As in Paris, the underground is much faster but you don't see anything on the way. There is a tour of London at night, featuring the buildings all lit up. I've forgotten what it cost, but it seemed a bit pricey, so we did our own tour by bus and it was delightful. You get a bus map in any of the underground stations where you buy your daily pass, which by the way is good on both buses and underground. We figured out which lines we wanted to take and we had quite a tour for free, considering we had bought the pass for the day, anyway. We did goof, in that we got on one line that left the city. As someone else mentioned, you get the pass for zones 1-3; maybe it was just for 1 and 2. Anyway, this unexpected deviation was taking us out of the zones our pass covered. My husband is so law-abiding he scares me, so he quickly pointed out to the driver that we were going out of our authorized area. The driver laughed and said not to worry, he'd get us back at no extra charge. Whatever, get the pass for the fewest zones you can. I really think it's 1-3. It takes you most everywhere you'd want to go, including out to Greenwich where the Cutty Sark and Gypsy Moth are, plus the international time spot (Greenwich standard time), if you still have the strength left to hike up the hill to where you place your feet on either side of the line. (I just took their word for it.) The first time we went we took the boat up (or down) the Thames and then came back on the bus. The last time we went out by bus and then my husband got the bright idea we should cross the river by walking through the underground tunnel (I thought we'd never see daylight again) and then taking some funny train back to London proper. As happens to us all the time, it was Sunday, so unbeknownst to us, funny train was not running. We did get back somehow by bus with another missed connection when it developed that the transfer bus we were awaiting did not run on Sundays. I've always said I wish they'd remove Sundays from the calendar when we are traveling. Everything unwanted always happens to us on Sundays.