Advertisement
Published: August 12th 2022
Edit Blog Post
We had decided to have a day in London after leaving the family in Peterborough. Plans made and a hotel booked but everything changed overtime. We booked a hotel near Terminals 2 and 3 as we were flying from Terminal 2. We booked two nights as our flight was leaving at 9:45 am. Ultimately our flight was changed twice and then cancelled. The replacement flight scheduled to leave at 21:15 and from Terminal 5. We now had two days to fill. We said goodbye to our family and caught the train to London Kings Cross, the tube to Terminals 2 and 3 and then walked to our hotel and checked in.
Day one - London
We caught the underground into London using the new Elizabeth line. Air- conditioned, how fabulous. It is the poor man’s Heathrow Express but worth trying. We changed when it finished at Paddington and then caught the tube to Tower Hill. We had decided that we would go to the Tower , look at the Super bloom flowers that had been planted for the Queens jubilee and then go to St Catherine’s dock for lunch. This is a favourite spot of ours and the beautiful
weather made it even more appealing. We weren’t the only ones who felt this way. After a delicious lunch at the Dickens Inn we walked back past the many restaurants in the area including one called the Slug and Lettuce ( Kevin wondered which one was the most popular item on the menu) and continued on to the Tower to look at the Superbloom planted for the Jubilee. Unfortunately the drought and the heatwave has played havoc with the display and they have browned off apart from a few sunflowers.
Day Two - Windsor
Staying near Terminal 2/3 let us see how an airport can and should move people around. To go to Windsor we needEd to catch a bus from Terminal 5. To get there you use a FREE train to transfer between the Terminals. This was a trial for us as our flight to Budapest the next day would be leaving from T5. It worked seamlessly and should be a blueprint for how to move people between terminals ie Sydney airport moving passengers from Domestic to International instead of those buses and the expensive train service that exists now.
Rant over. We caught the bus to
Windsor. Very easy and took about an hour. We walked around the city past the castle. Once again we were struck by the effects of the hot weather as the grass surrounding the castle was a crispy brown. Unfortunately on Sundays there is no performance of the Changing of the Guard. We have been to Windsor before so many parts were familiar to us. We walked through the Windsor Royal Shoppe Arcade where it has been restored/maintained with quite a number of coffee shops and the associated bike riders. At the end of the shops is still a working train station.
We had lunch at the Prince Harry pub adorned with photos of Harry and Meaghan before making our way back to the hotel via bus and train.
Back at the hotel we showered and finished our packing before checking out. We arrived at the airport with plenty of time to spare but eventually we were able to check in. The security process was a little slow but actually it was overall very smooth. We then began the long wait, fortunately in the BA lounge until our flight was called. It was a BA flight being operated by
Finnair. Apparently because of the situation in Russia Finnair has excess capacity and so BA are using them to cover their shortfalls in both planes and staff. The upside being they served great coffee. I asked for a coffee and when Kevin told the air steward that I liked it she said quietly “ that’s because it was Finnish coffee. We do have English coffee but ours is better”. We arrived in Budapest, were collected by our driver and 20 minutes later we were checking into the Marriott where we were staying for the next 3 nights. Off to our room and bed at about 2 am.
Next to explore Budapest
Advertisement
Tot: 0.372s; Tpl: 0.014s; cc: 20; qc: 78; dbt: 0.1398s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.3mb