Can't delete orphaned routing table

It seems you've encountered an issue with deleting a route table that was previously associated with a deleted VPC. This situation can occur when the VPC deletion process doesn't properly clean up all associated resources. Here are some steps you can try to resolve this issue:

1. First, double-check that the VPC is indeed completely deleted. Sometimes, there might be lingering dependencies that prevent full deletion.

2. If the VPC is truly gone, you may need to contact AWS Support to help remove the orphaned route table, as it's not possible to delete a main route table through standard means.

3. For future reference, it's generally better to delete all resources within a VPC (including route tables) before deleting the VPC itself. This helps prevent orphaned resources.

Regarding your second question about route tables and Internet Gateways:

When you create a VPC, a main route table is automatically created. This main route table includes a local route for communication within the VPC by default. However, adding an Internet Gateway to your VPC does not automatically create a route to the internet.

To enable internet access, you need to:

1. Attach an Internet Gateway to your VPC.
2. Add a route in your route table that directs internet-bound traffic (0.0.0.0/0) to the Internet Gateway.
3. Ensure that instances in your subnet have public IP addresses.

So, while you don't necessarily need to create an additional route table, you do need to add the appropriate route to the existing table to enable internet access through the Internet Gateway.

Sources
Subnet route tables - Amazon Virtual Private Cloud
Issues deleting VPC | AWS re:Post
How to set a route table as 'main' and what does it mean? | AWS re:Post

I have a few problems with the answer: 1. The VPC is not visible when I click on "Your VPCs". I don't know how I could access it. 2. I don't know how to contact AWS support. At least, I don't have any support plan. There is also no "--force" switch for me to say "I know what I'm doing, just throw away this thing". 3. I only arrived here when I tried to nail a public IP onto an EC2 instance, but still could not get an SSH login, and actually, I tried with terraform first, but then, I didn't know how to associate the IWG with any existing RT, but I also didn't see any in the console. Still learning...

I just had that. The route table was the last thing to disappear. Eventually it got cleaned up in the console. - weird. You'd think the console would flag that it was deleted or in tehj process of being removed.....