GABIT attendees thread

[clairec007]

Re: GABIT attendees thread

If this is your 1st event put your name below:[/COLOR]
Devilish Me
XFchemist
Jumble
Sarai
Josiane
Cags
Andy
MidwifeOnBoard
Penjab
Doikecarter


If this is your 2nd event put your name below:
2Shy


If this is your 3rd event put your name below:
SamJackShipLover (Annelies)
LLP (Laurie)
Cel/Brenda
Erin13 (Erin)



If this is your 4th event put your name below:
Julia(samcarterrules)


If this is your 5th event put your name below:
dipsofjazz (Bev)
clairec007 (Claire)

[donamac]

If this is your 1st event put your name below:

Devilish Me
XFchemist
Jumble
Sarai
Josiane
Cags
Andy
MidwifeOnBoard
penjab


If this is your 2nd event put your name below:



If this is your 3rd event put your name below:

Dona (donamac)


If this is your 4th event put your name below:

Julia(samcarterrules)


If this is your 5th event put your name below:

[lame moose (mocha)]

spending hours searching the internet trying to figure out where i want to go visit before and after AT5. planning day trips by train. thinking of one day to cardiff, wales, one to glasgow scotland , 1 to bath and one to see stonehenge and longleat safari park. if i take early trains each morning and then come back after dark, it should give me a good amount of time in each place. i don't care to go inside castles or museums. that's too time consuming. besides, i'd rather photograph the scenery and architecture. trying to organize this is mind boggling for me since they don't have times and fares available that far in advance. i'll have to do some phone time with Britrail. anybody done any train time in the UK.?

[lame moose (mocha)]

just found out that glasgow is about a 400mile trip from heathrow. maybe i could stay over one night and have the Ren hold my luggage that night.(don't want to drag any luggage with me. maybe i could fly into glasgow instead of heathrow. hmmmmm. i'll have to look into that. sorry, just thinking out loud.

[rderoch]

spending hours searching the internet trying to figure out where i want to go visit before and after AT5. planning day trips by train. thinking of one day to cardiff, wales, one to glasgow scotland , 1 to bath and one to see stonehenge and longleat safari park. if i take early trains each morning and then come back after dark, it should give me a good amount of time in each place. i don't care to go inside castles or museums. that's too time consuming. besides, i'd rather photograph the scenery and architecture. trying to organize this is mind boggling for me since they don't have times and fares available that far in advance. i'll have to do some phone time with Britrail. anybody done any train time in the UK.?

Had a wonderful time on the trains in the UK. Started in London after AT3 and went up to Edinburgh, then across and down to attend Avalon the next weekend. Bath is absolutely beautiful! One place you have to see. It was very cold, damp and windy the day we went to Stonehenge, so we walked around it rather quickly. The trains we were on had tables, so it worked out great because we had taken some travel games with us. Played many games of Yahtzee.

[babancat]

spending hours searching the internet trying to figure out where i want to go visit before and after AT5. planning day trips by train. thinking of one day to cardiff, wales, one to glasgow scotland , 1 to bath and one to see stonehenge and longleat safari park. if i take early trains each morning and then come back after dark, it should give me a good amount of time in each place. i don't care to go inside castles or museums. that's too time consuming. besides, i'd rather photograph the scenery and architecture. trying to organize this is mind boggling for me since they don't have times and fares available that far in advance. i'll have to do some phone time with Britrail. anybody done any train time in the UK.?

If you can, and you're sure of your itinerary book tickets for the train as far in advance as possible - even a week notice makes a huge difference - it's expensive if you just buy them on the day.
Cardiff for the day is certainly doable though. There is a direct train line, London Paddington to Cardiff Central, it takes about 2 hours and the trains are usually every half an hour
Have fun planning

[SamJackShipLover]

Just making the list right

If this is your 1st event put your name below:
Devilish Me
XFchemist
Jumble
Sarai
Josiane
Cags
Andy
MidwifeOnBoard
Penjab
Doikecarter


If this is your 2nd event put your name below:
2Shy


If this is your 3rd event put your name below:
SamJackShipLover (Annelies)
LLP (Laurie)
Cel/Brenda
Erin13 (Erin)
Dona (donamac)


If this is your 4th event put your name below:
Julia(samcarterrules)


If this is your 5th event put your name below:
dipsofjazz (Bev)
clairec007 (Claire)

[Skydiver]

If you're sight seeing in London, a pattern a friend and I found that worked is to pick 2-3 locations, reasonably close to each other...take the tube/bus a bit after rush hour - i think you can buy day pass fares that are cheaper after 9am and most places don't open until 9 or 10 anyway. go to the first site, spend the morning, either eat lunch at the site or on the way to the second one (many tube and bus stations have conveniently located sandwich or other fast food shops, and many sites have a lunch room attached where you can get a reasonably priced lunch) then take public transit to your second stop and basically repeat things, cept you'll be grabbing dinner out somewhere

It will likely get dark early - i know when we were sight seeing in november the sun was setting by 4pm or so - but things are busy enough that we never really felt unsafe to be navigating London after dark. Just use common sense.

The only way we fit 3 or more sites in is if they were close....like seeing big ben and westminster abbey and the london eye....they're all within blocks of each other so easy to do in the same trip (also, be prepared, some places will not allow photographs inside, i know st paul's and westminster won't.)

another fun thing to do, if you go into st paul's cathedral, you can climb to the top. Just be aware that it's you and stairs and climbing, so if you have issues with stairs etc, might rethink it, but if you do do it, the views are great cause you can get outside and walk around and while you can't take photos inside you can outside.

[penjab]

If you're sight seeing in London, a pattern a friend and I found that worked is to pick 2-3 locations, reasonably close to each other...take the tube/bus a bit after rush hour - i think you can buy day pass fares that are cheaper after 9am and most places don't open until 9 or 10 anyway. go to the first site, spend the morning, either eat lunch at the site or on the way to the second one (many tube and bus stations have conveniently located sandwich or other fast food shops, and many sites have a lunch room attached where you can get a reasonably priced lunch) then take public transit to your second stop and basically repeat things, cept you'll be grabbing dinner out somewhere

It will likely get dark early - i know when we were sight seeing in november the sun was setting by 4pm or so - but things are busy enough that we never really felt unsafe to be navigating London after dark. Just use common sense.

The only way we fit 3 or more sites in is if they were close....like seeing big ben and westminster abbey and the london eye....they're all within blocks of each other so easy to do in the same trip (also, be prepared, some places will not allow photographs inside, i know st paul's and westminster won't.)

another fun thing to do, if you go into st paul's cathedral, you can climb to the top. Just be aware that it's you and stairs and climbing, so if you have issues with stairs etc, might rethink it, but if you do do it, the views are great cause you can get outside and walk around and while you can't take photos inside you can outside.

Is the not taking pictures new at Westminster's Abby and St. Paul's? When I was there in the late 80's and early 90's they allowed it. I have lots of pictures taken there. They may not have allowed flash photography but I definitely have lots of pictures from inside.

[Celandine]

When I was there in November, I did LOTS of public transit. I booked everything at least 2 or 3 months in advance as soon as I had a set plan on where I was going and when. Some of the best deals are found this way, so totally recommend it, especially if you'll be bopping about from one end of the island to the other.

Here's a great site that I used myself. Low cost tickets for both the bus and train. We used it to go out to Stonehenge for the day from London and it cost us only 1GBD for the fare! We had to pay full price for the return trip, but only because we didn't book in advance as we didnt know how long the sightseeing would take that day. Next time, I won't make that same mistake. Book a return time, even if it's 6 or 7 in the evening. You'll save quite a bit which can be used for more exploring on another day.

Megabus

Good luck!

[lame moose (mocha)]

thanks for the travel tips. i definitely plan on going to cardiff and i checked and glascow is a 4 1/2 hour trip, so i will go there early, stay overnight and go early to edinburgh the next day and then back to the Ren. late that afternoon. 2 more day trips will get me to stonehenge, longleat safari park and then bath. i actually covered a lot of ground in london in november. the taxi dropped me off at buckingham palace and then i scootered to st. james park and fed the birds and squirrels, zoomed to big ben,westminster abby(couldn't go in because the queen was around)all around the parliament buildin area and almost all the way up the thames to the tower bridge. then imy batteries started to die so i called the taxi for pick up. i did more running around the next day but still could not get into the abbey because of the queen. so i zoomed up to the picadilly area and trafalgar(sp?0square and the tower of london. didn't have time to go inside the tower, so that's a definite must do for the next trip. and this trip i'd like to see london from the other side of the thames and maybe go on the london eye.
this time i'll be a little smarter and take my battery charger with me.
they have a disabled railpass that will save me some money in addition to booking in advance. taxi from the ren to london was expensive, so i need to find alternate transport there.

[Skydiver]

as of 2007, you could not take photos inside westminster or st paul's. I even, in st pauls, turned my camera on to show the photos i'd taken outside - in play mode - and was asked to turn it off

if something's changed since then, i don't know, but that was my experience then

the view is 'these are active places of worship, thus please respect the sanctity of them'

[penjab]

as of 2007, you could not take photos inside westminster or st paul's. I even, in st pauls, turned my camera on to show the photos i'd taken outside - in play mode - and was asked to turn it off

if something's changed since then, i don't know, but that was my experience then

the view is 'these are active places of worship, thus please respect the sanctity of them'

That's interesting. We have cameras in my church when there are events, i.e. baby dedications, children's choir presentations, etc. Oh, well. I am glad I went when I did then. I treasure my photos of Westminster Abby and St. Paul's.

[Skydiver]

i would have loved some...course you can buy their photos

in fact, we didn't go into westminster simply because we couldn't take any photos and had to have our bags searched so decided it just wasn't worth it

[lame moose (mocha)]

as of 2007, you could not take photos inside westminster or st paul's. I even, in st pauls, turned my camera on to show the photos i'd taken outside - in play mode - and was asked to turn it off

if something's changed since then, i don't know, but that was my experience then

the view is 'these are active places of worship, thus please respect the sanctity of them'

that's certainly a valid concern, but i'd just like to at least see the inside. last nov. the guard let me get close enough to the door to get 1 shot of the tomb of the unknown soldier with all the flowers on it for armistice day. besides, it boosts their postcard sales.
boy, the more research i do, the more places i find that i'd like to see. has anyone ever used the rail passes? can you get unlimited trips for however many days the pass is for? i'll have to add up what each ride would cost me and see how much the pass would save me. if you use the pass, you don't have to buy tickets in advance, right? i've never traveled by train before, except for a 1hour scenic ride in the white mountains of new hampshire. very pretty. got my hotel booked for AT5. 161 days