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| Southsea station |
London Baby! One of the main cities you have to visit when you're staying in Portsmouth (or somewhere else in England). I already been to London with school to visit the most important buildings, attractions and places but today i've been to London without the intention visiting things. More visiting someone, while my boyfriend was coming over and the easiest way to come to England from Belgium is to take the Eurostar from Brussels to London.
A good thing about staying in Portsmouth, is that it's sooo easy to go to London and it doesn't take long either. It doesn't even cost much if you take the right transportation. That's why i'm gonna explain you the different ways to go to London.
By train:
First of all, it's always better to book your ticket in advance because it's mostly cheaper and you don't have to stand in line to buy one. Ok now, DON'T buy your ticket at www.tp.express.co.uk (the only advantage of that website is that you can order an Underground Day Travelcard with your train ticket), www.nationalrail.co.uk, www.southwesttrains.co.uk, or at www.southernrailway.com. Although these normally the trains you have to take to go to London, you can book them cheaper on another site, namely: http://www.megabus.com/uk/! The prices differ from £1 (+50 pence booking fee) till £8 for a single ticket, no more! And it only takes half an hour or at most 2 hours. I love it! The train stops in London Waterloo, a big train station full of little shops like The Body Shop, Costa Coffee,... The only downside is that you can't seem to book tickets for a train on Sunday. So if you want to travel cheap to London on Sunday you'll have to take the bus.
By bus:
I only know two bus companies that can take you to London and that are National Express: http://www.nationalexpress.com/ and Greyhound: http://www.greyhounduk.com/. When you look at the website of National Express, you can normally click at the right on 'lowest fare finder for our coaches'. Definitely do that! In that way, you might even find a ticket for only 99 pence. Even when you don't find one for 99 pence, you mostly find one for only £4 or 5. When you book only 1 day in advance, it mostly costs £7, 8 or 9. Still not much! It does depend for which hour of the day you book it. The travel time of each bus is mentioned on the website so you can choose if you want to travel only 2 hours (at least) or 3h50 (at most). But of course that also depends on which hour of the day you'll travel. The bus stops in London Victoria. National Express also sell train tickets but you shouldn't look at that, they are way more expensive than the ones on megabus.com! Greyhound's prices differ from £1 to £7,90 for a single fare. You can choose between a lot of different hours and they also stop in London Victoria. The travel time is about the same as the busses from National Express. The advantage of Greyhound is that you not only have wi-fi like you have in the busses of National Express, but also extra legroom, and power sockets. Very useful when watching a film with your laptop our portable dvd player, to prevent having a power failure during a thrilling moment.
So, have a nice trip to London ;)