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Hmmm, I've stayed at plenty of hotels in Europe and they all had keycards--including some which were historic properties. The only time we've had keys was when we've rented a flat. I think we had one B&B in the US with metal keys, although I freely admit we've only stayed in a handful of them. One that I stayed at in Canada didn't even have keyed locks on the doors. You could lock from inside, but with the little turn thing on the knob, not a key or deadbolt.
I'm just back from a six-week trip through nine countries, and never saw an electronic key card once. Except one place, with a gadget attached to the keyring, to buzz open the outer door to get in off the street, in Odessa. (I still have it, I neglected to return it.)
Maybe because Austria is obviously Western Europe?
Just chiming in to say that I still didn't like London that much when it wasn't raining. It's so ridiculously expensive - much more so than other cities of its own league, id est Paris. It's not even about GBP being a lot stronger than Euro, I just don't get why many of the sight-seeing spots charge that much.
Oh and the public transportation is just as unreasonably pricey: the metro system, while pretty decent, is so, so, so, so expensive. Don't even get me started on the trains to somewhere else(eg Cambridge), it was like 3 times as expensive as the ones in France.
I guess I'm just on some sort of hating-London rampage. Sorry if anyone here is a big fan of the city.
And I don't think I'll ever visit Switzerland or Norway. London is bad enough, I don't need some Zurich or Oslo prices. Ew.
I'm not a huge fan of London, but I just got back from there. Yes, it's expensive, but did you not get the Oyster Card? That gives you unlimited rides in Zones 1 and 2 for 6.70 GBP a day and reduced fare for national trains. As for attractions, the London Pass is a good deal. Still, expensive city though.
Yes these places are free, but I was referring to Tower of London, Westminster Abbey, St Paul's Cathedral etc. The admission fee of these monuments ranges from 15-20 pounds, which is really expensive imo. Whereas the monuments in Paris are about half of that amount, considering how weak Euro is compares to GBP, it's about a third as expensive.
I've never been to NYC so I can't comment on that, but compared to Paris, London Underground is much, much more expensive.
We walked a lot too, but the rain made the walking a lot less pleasant than it was supposed to be, just bad luck I guess.
I guess I'm just from a poor country. Sorry about that.
With the exception of St. Paul's, you could have seen those attractions and many, many more for "free" with the London Pass (once you paid for the pass of course).
I'm not a huge fan of London, but I just got back from there. Yes, it's expensive, but did you not get the Oyster Card? That gives you unlimited rides in Zones 1 and 2 for 6.70 GBP a day and reduced fare for national trains. As for attractions, the London Pass is a good deal. Still, expensive city though.
I did buy an Oyster card but I wasn't aware of the reduced fare. Maybe because mine was a tourist card instead of a regular one? All I can remember is that I had to top it up over and over again, which was pretty annoying.
Quote:
Originally Posted by WestCobb
With the exception of St. Paul's, you could have seen those attractions and many, many more for "free" with the London Pass (once you paid for the pass of course).
Yeah, we did think about getting the London Pass, but after contemplating, we decided not to as there's a high chance that we might not visit many of the listed attractions due to various reasons.
And frankly the pass was also crazy expensive. The 6 days one costs like 150 pounds.
Current cost of the six day London Pass without transportation option is £98.60 per their web site.
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