Londoner's Life

London is one of the biggest cities in the world, not only by his inhabitants and its economic influence but also by its surface area. The London area is over 1700 sqm, which is 17 times the area of Paris!!! It’s mostly due to its architecture and its town planning. A typical area in London is comprised of 1 or 2 floors in a Victorian style houses. Its town planning is more horizontal than vertical compared to Paris.

How to travel?

The main problem is: how to travel? Firstly, taking the car to go into London is definitively not the best solution. Indeed, the mayor of London launched a congestion charge system around London city centre in 2003, where you need to pay if you want to drive into the city centre. This charge has been launched so as to reduce the car traffic (and pollution) downtown. If you want to travel by car in this area between 7 am and 6pm you need to pay a £10 charge. This is a good reason to seriously think about using the public transport network! The public transport is cheaper, but still expensive than other options.

The train service is divided into several zones, to travel in the 1-2 zones you will have to pay £116.80 for a 1 month plan. Once your travel card has been delivered, you can benefit from the numerous Tube lines which will enable you to travel everywhere in those zones. The Tube is fast and most of the time reliable, with one train every 1 to 3 minutes in peak time. In the city centre, you may catch the last train between 0:30 am and 1 am, so no need to worry if you are prolonged after work.

In addition to the Underground network, there is an important bus network that is very useful once the Tube is closed. Night buses pass regularly during the night and follow the same lines as the buses during the day, and can bring you to all corners of London whatever the hour.

In all cases, when you want to plan a journey with London transports you should go on the TfL website, which will give you the fastest travel route.

If one day you get totally lost in London streets, and you don’t recognize any underground station or buses, call for a black cab i.e a Taxi. They will drive you everywhere you want with similar prices to French taxis.