Getting around London by Bus

We are a bit outside the center in one of the old villages, Chelsea.  Of course, it’s not a village now, but it does mean we will learn how to get around greater London.  We are not that near any tube stations so let’s look at the bus.  And we can always hop on the bus and get off at the South Kensington tube station for the Central, District and Piccadilly lines.
I happen to have a Central London bus map...admittedly it’s from March 2009, but it allows me to see the larger picture, and I’ll supplement it with one of the apps I’ve downloaded for London.
Starting from 431 Fulham Road, traveling on Fulham Rd.
The 14 will take us up Fulham past the South Kensington museums, up Piccadilly to  Covent  Garden, then up Charing Cross and Tottenham Ct. to Euston Station.  Of course it might take a while...but the apps will tell us how long.  That route will take us to the S. Ken. Museums, Covent Garden, Bloomsbury and near the British Museum
The 414 parallels the 14 to Hyde Park Corner then veers north along Hyde Park.  We could take that up to Speaker’s Corner and the. Walk a bit east on Oxford to Selfridges for their food court.
The 211 will take us to Victoria Station and on to Westminster and across the Westminster Bridge, but, again, it may take a while.  From the end of that line we can walk 14 minutes to the Imperial War Museum.
Now if we walk southerly (0.2 mi) to King's Road we have even more bus choices:

The 11 looks like a really useful route.  It travels up King's Road, past Westminster Cathedral, Westminster Abbey, Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament, Trafalgar Square, travels down the Strand, passes the Royal Courts of Justice, turns down Fleet Street into the City, past St. Paul's Cathedral and ends at Liverpool Station. 

Here is an article, "London's Top 3 Sightseeing Bus Routes," from VisitBritain. 
And, of course, we will use Transport of London's Plan a Journey all the time!


P.S.  We'll always be looking for double-decker buses and will try to ride on top in the front seat,  what Mitch called "the Terror Seat,"  don't ask me why because driving with him as a passenger in NYC was "the terror seat." 

But if you want to ride on one of the iconic Routemasters, here's an article for you.

  "The heritage number 15 service is a fantastic route for tourists as it passes by some of London's most iconic sites including St Paul's Cathedral and the Tower of London. It's a much cheaper alternative to some of the London bus tour companies. For the best views, grab a seat at the front upstairs. "
We can catch it at Trafalgar Square and ride to Tower Hill, and it runs every 15 minutes, seven days a week, between c. 9:30 am and 6:30 pm

Returning from Santiago de Compostela to Madrid

We should try to book this before we go so we are sure to get back to Madrid on May 13th, in time for our flight home on the 14th.  RailEurope.com doesn't let you book trips in Spain more than 60 days in advance.  RyanAir quotes us a price of 25.29 euros and has flights at 8:15 and 22:20, neither times the best, although the 8:15 am flight is cheaper at 22.61 euros, paid with a debit card or 23.11 with a credit card.  It says that the fare is 10.99€ and the Spanish airport taxes are 11.62€.  Iberia charges $174 so it's not in the running.

I'd actually prefer the train or bus so I could see the countryside and have the time to decompress before flying over what we walked in 2 seconds.  However, I was looking at the bus schedule at ALSA and all the trips take 8-10 hours!!  It goes up to Coruna and has 20 stops so scratch that!  But there are 7 buses a day so in case another form of transportation gets cancelled hopefully we could still take the bus.

There are three trains to Madrid from Santiago, one at 9:05am, one at 5:05pm and then an overnight trenhotel that leaves at 10:33 pm and gets into Madrid at 8:02.  The day trains take about 6 hours so we'd take the earlier one at 9:05am and arrive at 2:56pm.  At 54.20 € it's more than RyanAir but we'd get to see the countryside.  It looks like we will have to think about this.

Getting to Sarria

We arrive in Madrid on May 1st (why do we always choose International Labor Day to begin our travels?).  In 2007 we took a very pleasant train ride from Madrid to Pamplona.  We hope to do the same to Leon this time and then we'll take a bus to Sarria, which is proving to be more complicated (sort of like the one bus a day - at 5 pm - from Pamplona to Roncesvalles). 

Renfe offers Alvia and Intercity trains from Madrid's Charmartin station to Leon that take about 3 hours.  The Alvia costs 45.30€ and the Intercity 37€.  We are scheduled to arrive in Madrid at 8:20 am but it is on US Airways so that could mean 11:20 am.  We'll have to get from the Barajas airport to the Charmartin train station so that might be another hour.  There are trains at: 10:30, 11:05, 14:40, 17:05, 19:00, 20:30.  Needless to say, we should have a hotel reservation in Leon since it is a holiday.  And we better make train reservations as well, perhaps on RailEurope.com.

Then to get to Sarria, it appears we will have to take a bus from Leon to Lugo on ALSA, and then take a different bus company, MonBus, from Lugo to Sarria.  There are two nonstop buses from Leon to Lugo that appear to run every day:  10:15 am (arriving at 13:30) and 16:30 pm (arriving at 20:15pm).  Obviously we would take the morning bus.  The fare is 17.54€ apiece.

The trip from Lugo to Sarria is much shorter, only 35 minutes, and there are 13 buses a day on weekdays.  There are buses at 13:45, 14:45, 15:20, 17:30, 18:35 (I might as well get used to that 24 hour clock).  So if everything ran on schedule, we could take the 10:15 bus from Leon to Lugo and then the 13:45 bus to Sarria, and if we missed that there's the 14:45 bus.  However, if we went on Sunday, there are fewer buses: if we missed the 13:45 bus, we'd have to wait until 18:35 for the next one.  The fare is 3.70€ apiece.  Monbus doesn't seem to service Leon, although it goes to Madrid, Barcelona, Burgos and many other cities.

How much did we plan ahead in 2007?  I know we bought our train tickets online and then were able to change them to an earlier train at the station.  But that wasn't May 1st.

Getting around Glasgow

OK assuming we make all the connections and arrive at the Glasgow airport at 7:30 am Saturday morning, how do we get into town?
If you go to Transport Direct, you can plan your route. They give you options for Bus (Arriva 500) and Coach but both are Arriva 500. They leave pretty much every 10 minutes from 6 am to 8 pm. The first bus leaving Glasgow is 5 am, then 5:30 and 5:50. That's for our return flight at 9 am on Friday, August 28th. It supposedly takes 17 minutes.
And if we lived in Scotland, the trip would be free since we are over 60!!

First Group is supposed to provide the city's bus service. They have a map of the bus stops in the city center. Most places we can walk to but to get to the Burrell Collection one needs to take a bus. Maybe the #45.

Train to Pamplona

This week I posted to the gocamino listserv my question about how to get from Madrid to Pamplona. The only flights were at about 8 pm at night and afterour experience at Gatwick in 1999, I don't want to spend a whole day in the airport waiting for a flight. So our other options are a 5 hour bus ride or a 3.5 hour train trip. The other pilgrims on the gocamino list serve seemed to like the train better than the bus. There are 3 trains a day and we are hoping that we don't need reservations. Afterall we don't know if our plane will arive on time with us on it.
http://www.continental-auto.es/
http://www.renfe.es/

If we can't get a train or bus on sunday, we can stay overnight and catch one the following day.

This past week they have been having snow in the Pyrenees and rain in Pamplona. A british pilgrim died of hyperthermia after he got lost on the trail from St. Jean Pied de Port to Roncesvalles.
http://www.diariodenavarra.es/
The Camino (Ruta de Napoleon) does not parallel the highway in that area and there are many tales of pilgrims becoming lost in that region. The Refugio at Roncesvalles would ring a bell in the night to guide pilgrims who were lost to the Church.

I also read an account of a barefoot pilgrim who left on April 29th and said that it was quite cold. So I will take that lightweight fleece shirt afterall.

Ultreia!