A visit to Caterham — a day trip outside London by London bus only
Bus services in London not only cover the city but also cross the border to other towns surrounding it. Caterham is one of the examples you can escape Greater London with only £1.75!
Driven by curiosity I gave route 407 a try, so that the journey from East Croydon was only 40 minutes.
Caterham is a village on the hill of eastern Surrey with a train station connecting to London Bridge and shops including Costa Coffee, Nero Coffee and KFC.
There is a museum called East Surrey Museum — one of the reasons attracting me to pay a visit to the village.
There is one independent specialty coffee shop (sorry I regard other cafes are those serving foods as well, not quite focusing on coffee) inside the train station called BROO Coffee. Under the high temperature on the day of visit, thankfully they have an air conditioner, a good option to stay cool other than chained stores like Costa and Nero. I spent some time on working for an hour or two there.
East Surrey Museum
East Surrey Museum is the local museum there. It’s free and small, but lots of see. Not sure if there is AC but inside was cool under 29c. The museum covers prehistoric times, periods before and after 1066 when the country was established, as well as the Victorian period especially the transport development.
I bought 3 Local History Records for £1 in total. The magazine has published since 1960s starting from lovely illustrations, and transformed into images as the main visual elements later on. I really love the magazine and even newspapers with illustrations, but it's a shame that we prefer photos to sketches even though there are more and more illustrators compared to the past.
Queen’s Park
There are some spots outside the village, but more walking time is needed to access, or the local bus but it’s much less frequent than London bus, like every 60 minutes or more. The Queen’s Park is close to the village. It’s a field for sports but you will see the wide blue sky, compared to London where it is more crowded and there is a chance seeing some skyscrapers.
Caterham is not obviously attractive to tourists, but if you are a curious person, you can have full of travel plans to anywhere not too much influenced by social media.
