Travels with Em - "Public Transportation"

One of the best moves I made prior to leaving for England was to buy a London Pass Travel Card. I only wish I had known that children 10 and under could travel for free and I could have saved the price of Em's ticket. Nevertheless, it allowed us to travel by public transportation - all bus, underground, and Dockland Rail (DLR) within zones 1-6. I think Em would have been happy riding the rails all day, everyday. We caught on quickly to the tube map which explained the travel routes of the underground. We even had strangers asking US for directions. This clip from Samantha Brown's travel show talks about the underground system.

The underground was not always this calm and sedate. We ended up in transit at rush hour a couple of times. Once, Em was so squashed in between all the much taller passengers that she did not even have to hold on.

"I am held up by all these people," she said. All I could see was a head with a laughing face. We got off at the next stop and waited for a less congested train while we shared a good laugh.

Travel by DLR was much easier. Perhaps there were not so many people going that far at the hours we were traveling. The only time we ran into a problem, was getting to a bus from the train station to get to our next objective. Chislehurst Caves was within walking distance of the train, but catching the bus to Hampton Court Palace would have taxed both of us to the limit. Fortunately, a very nice lady drove us to the bus stop when we stopped to ask for directions. It was not far by car, but would have been a fair distance by shank's mare.