There are many different ways to travel and see other parts of England. During my four months in England, I saw different parts of the beautiful country. The main way of traveling in England is by train. The trains go all around England and may be the quickest way to get to somewhere if you have no car. From Oxford, London is just a 50-minute train ride. Traveling on trains became one of my favorite things, as I got to explore places that weren’t places easily. I loved to be able to watch out the window and the rolling hills in the countryside. I would often travel to London and explore new areas in London. One of my favorite things to do in London is to go to the Portobello Road market in Notting Hill. I loved exploring and seeing all the vintage pieces they had to offer. Another place I went to by train during my time in Oxford was Bath. Bath was an hour’s train ride from Oxford. Bath is a beautiful place and it has lots of historic buildings. It’s a popular place to film period pieces, so when I went I saw many film locations. I saw the Bridgerton location, for example, the Featherington house and the modiste. I also saw some Pride and Prejudice locations and the Jane Austen Museum. Bath was a quick day trip and was accessible from Oxford by train. While trains are the main way to get to other towns and London there may be train strikes where the trains aren’t available. When that happened I would use the buses.
There is a bus that goes directly to London from Oxford called the Oxford Tube, it is helpful when the trains go on strike. Though it does take two hours to get to London from Oxford, it is helpful in the event of a train strike. England’s most popular bus company is National Express. I used this bus company to go to smaller London airports, like Luton. There is also a bus directly to Oxford from Heathrow called The Airline, which I used when I first got to England at the start of my program. Often the buses were not expensive if booked ahead of time, but it was often no more than 30 pounds. The bus was helpful to get to places when there wasn’t a train ride available.
National Express was the main way I got to the airport so I could travel to different places. I often went to Luton airport as it was closest to Oxford. When I traveled on an airplane I often used the airline Easyjet. It’s a low-cost British airline and it travels all over Europe. One of the places I went to on EasyJet was Edinburgh, one of my favorite places I went to in the UK. Edinburgh was an easy hour and a fifteen-minute flight, I was there in no time. I spent my time in Edinburgh exploring the old town, and the castle, and meeting up with friends. My friend from Salve flew over to meet up with another friend in Ireland. They then meet up with me in Edinburgh. It was such a wonderful experience to travel with them. I made many wonderful memories with them, and it might be why I loved being in Edinburgh so much. I wasn’t a big fan of flying before my semester in England but I found the memories I got, definitely made up for the flying. Another airline that I used when in England was Ryanair, which is another low-cost airline. That airline I flew out of the Stansted airport when I flew them. I didn’t fly out of that airport often because it was four hours away by bus from Oxford.
My time spent in England had become such a wonderful memory for me, having the ability to see such beautiful places because of the transportation in England was so helpful. I would have never been able to see these places if there were no trains, buses, or even accessible airlines.
Amelia S is studying Studio Art concentration Graphic Design and is studying abroad at St Clare’s Oxford.
Comments are closed.