It is now August 2021, and I need to exercise more. Travelling to London is the only way that I get my 10,000 steps, and I treally need this exxercise.
I make another trip to London without any planning., which is quite normal There is an additional issue which means most of the District and Circle lines are not runnng between Aldgate and Earls Court; today, and therefore I thought I would try this trip on a bus – partially.
There appears to be a number 15 bus towards Trafalgare square,, and starts from somewhere near the Tower. As I travel in from Upminster, alighting at Limehouse allows a lift access to the street level, and then the bus ride along Commercial road into the city. This goes very close to the Tower, and I could have walked down from Fenchurch street station to here, but travelling along Commercial road is quite interesting in itself. The bus then travels west, and ends at Charing Cross, near to Trafalgar square.
An update on this (12th October) ; I have been trying to catch the 15 bus from Fenchurch street station, and the only way to do this is to walk to Aldgate, by the bus station. The next two stops on the route are closed, for no obvious or clear reason. This partly explains why buses are often empty, because the stops are all closed! Apart from this, a good bus to catch. If you return towards Fenchurch street on this bus, exit at the Tower of London, and a very short walk gets you to the Tower Gateway DLR station, with escalators, lifts etc.
Charing Cross station has toilets which are nice and clean, although you do need to walk down some stairs to enter them from the station shopping area. There is also an accessible toilet, although you need to ask staff to use it.
I was not feeling the urge to look around the Trafalgare square and Strand area today, and I took a second bus towards Fulham broadway. This was for absolutely no reason, I had never been to Fulham broadway before. And from here I took another bus to Hammersmith broadway, just because I could.. Today was a fact finding day.
At Hammersmith i realised that there were underground stations which have not been visited in building my accessible site of stations, and I set off on a trrip of a lifetime. Hammermith is very accessible, but the next few stations are about as accessible as a four storey town house, mine is three levels.
The last part of the day was involved in visiting each station, one at a time, exiting the train, walk along to the exit, walk down the stairs, exit the station, Take a picture of the station from the road, and anthing interesting worth photographing, walk back into the station, back up the stairs, and gt back on the train.
BUT, I cannot do that anymore. I get off of the train, walk the length of the platform and take a picture of the stairwell, then wait for the next train,. Until Latimer road.
At Latimer road, I took the thirty steps from the station and down to road level, and walked somberly around the area for a while. The tower is well hidden from most of the area, but it is there as a reminder.
I took a bus to Ladroke grove Sainsburys, then another to Paddington, and then a train home, which ended going all the way to Upminster, and I slept through a lot of this.
Day two :
On the Friday, I also wandered into London, via Fenchurch street station, but had decided that this was to find the number 25 bus which stopped in Leadenhall street (I should point out that bus stops are a bit manic during all of the builds in London at present).
It was a major find, the 25 bus heads in my direction of travel, i.e. west. This is insignificant as it only goes as far as City Thameslink station. BUT, from here, and in fact from most of the route , the number 8 bus then heads for Tottenham Court road. Relevance is that I have been working out a route and escape route for this part of London for some time, and previous attempts to get here using the London underground have been abolutely abysmal..
At Tottenham court road, it is only a short walk to the British Museum. You do need to book tiickets to visit, but these are free (plus donation). The British Museum is an epic few hours of amazing and wondrous experiences. I love it.
the return journey was very similar, but noticing that the number 8 bus also follows a similiar route to thenumber 25. I need to investigate this more.