London, England
Saturday, September 14 – possibly the most boring post of the trip. After only about 4 hours of sleep, I woke up at my regular time, unable to fall back asleep. Decided it made sense to take today as my rest day. Woke up an email that said our flight had been rescheduled for 1:45PM.
Unfortunately, that meant lots of time to sit around an airport hotel and wait, then a period of massive stress to try and make a tight connection to catch our train north once we arrived in England. So, essentially, boredom, followed by anxiety. Now there’s a dynamic duo that spells vacation fun!
One of the things I most dreaded about all of this was running the check-in/security gauntlet for a second time. Thankfully, fear is worse than reality, and the airport on Saturday morning was much calmer than it had been last night.
British Airways gave us a voucher for lunch, so we took advantage of that before wandering to our gate, where we realized that our schedule was getting tighter–the boarding process had yet to start and we were rapidly approaching the time we were supposed to depart.
We finally got moving, and I must admit, there was a certain camaraderie among the passengers as we got seated, as we had all endured the same pain. One thing I must note–throughout this whole ordeal, no one was an idiot, there were no meltdowns, everyone behaved–that would have made it far worse.
Flight was uneventful until we approached London, and it appeared we would be landing about 25 minutes late…uh oh, any buffer was rapidly disappearing. It then completely evaporated when we got on the ground and had to sit on the plane, yet again, as Heathrow’s ground control system melted down and we were part of a conga line of aircraft waiting for a gate assignment. You can’t make this stuff up.
By the time we deplaned, we knew our train would be leaving without us. While we waited for passport control (which was very efficient) and baggage claim (which was insane), we booked a hotel and train tickets for tomorrow.
We then had to progress out of the airport and onto the London Underground. Apparently us and everyone else in the greater London area. There is nothing like being jammed into an aluminum tube with several hundred others. Ambient temperature was well into the 90s. I may not have gotten any exercise today, but I’m pretty sure I sweated off 5 pounds.
Finally walked into our hotel 2 hours after we walked off the plane, almost exactly 24 hours from when we first walked into Krakow Airport last evening. I love travel, and I recognize you sometimes have to roll with the punches, but I certainly hope that this is the end of this nonsense!
Turns out our hotel is in the Bloomsbury neighborhood of London–famous for Charles Dickens, Virginia Woolf, and Charles Darwin. Nice shops, pubs, and restaurants nearby. We had a lovely Greek inspired dinner at a local place that did wonders for our mood!
Tomorrow, we head up to the Lakes!
14,073 steps (and an equal number of ounces of sweat); 6.5 miles
London Underground:
The famous London “Tube” was slow, hot and crowded but it got us from the airport to the hotel area. Entry and exit via Tap to Pay.
Hotel:
- Euro Hotel: https://www.eurohotel.co.uk/ Small hotel in the Bloomsbury neighborhood of London. Small room, no elevator, lovely location across from park and walking distance to restaurants and Euston Station. Lovely breakfast room, good breakfast.
No sights to report on except the interior of airports, subway cars and train stations.
Breakfast:
Hotel breakfast at the Hilton Garden Inn — pretty decent selection, good coffee, standard airport hotel atmosphere.
Lunch:
British Airways lunch voucher at the airport — not a lot of money, but enough to get a sandwich and a water — again, fairly antiseptic dining experience
Dinner:
Mine Main:
This was the meal that made the day — small, cute spot short walk from the hotel, very much a neighborhood vibe with a fun young waiter. Greek specialties, good wine and a fine end to a long travel day.
Dinner
A very long day of travel. Flight schedule ended up requiring changing train to late afternoon, and then again to tomorrow when it became clear we would not be able to make plane–>train connection in time. Had to find a hotel in London, meanwhile forfeiting our pre-booked accommodations in the Lakes District. And London Underground, while it got us where we needed to be, was hot, crowded and slow.
As noted in the post, the one bright spot was that all the travelers, while weary and frustrated, all behaved as decent human beings. Sad to have to actually note this, but it made a less than stellar experience bearable.
The bright spot of the day was our evening, as we took a nice walk through the pretty neighborhood in cool temperatures to a nice restaurant. Some good food and a nice glass of wine in pleasant surroundings does wonders for the soul!