With a layover of just over 10 hours in London, we decided to visit the Tate London. We had rooms at the Sofitel at Heathrow--just a 5 minute walk through a covered walkway from Terminal 5 where we landed and and departed. Getting through immigration was a breeze (less than 10 minutes) and with the luggage checked through we just had to find an ATM to get some British pounds and then go to the hotel. My room was so nice I was tempted just to crawl into the lovely Queen bed, and abandon London, but instead a brief stay to dump the luggage, wash my face, brush my teeth, and comb my hair. I was ready to head to London.
We walked back to the terminal and boarded the tube to go to London
. We made a couple of strategic mistakes, we didn't know the exact location of the museum, and we only had a subway map. We did know that the museum was located along the Thames, and I thought it was on the South Bank, so we headed to Waterloo Station. Although I hadn't been in London since 2001, we made it to Waterloo without mishap, and asked a local police officer for directions. His instructions were confident and clear "Go out of Station, turn left, and walk along the Bankside until you reached the museum. We started out and walked about 6 blocks before we saw a tourist map that clearly indicated that we needed to cross the river, since the Museum was on the North Bank. We were right at the bridge, so crossed and got a great view of Big Ben and Parliment, then made a left turn and headed in the direction indicated. After passing Westminister Abbey, we decided to seek further directions and stopped to ask a traffic policeman who assured us that we were heading in the right direction, but needed to "cross the roundabout and walk for about 20 minutes
." It was time to reconsider our plan. We boarded the tube at 11, arrived at Waterloo about noon, and it was now almost 1. We had to checkout of our room by 6, and wanted to rest and shower before going back to the airport, which meant we needed to start the return trip by 3, and we hadn't eaten lunch. So, we decided to look for a pub or a restaurant. You might think that should be an easy task in the heart of tourist London, but we walked for about 15 minutes and saw one carry-out, a Leonides Chocolate Shop, and a Starbucks. Just as we about to lose hope we saw a narrow side street where there was some sort of street market and several pubs, bakeries, and The Happy Halibut Fish and Chips Shop. It seemed like a good choice and we enjoyed eating Cod and Chips and drinking ginger beer with the locals, it was definitely not a tourist place and one high point of our London adventure. We also got some accurate directions to the nearest tube station, and headed back to the airport, with just a brief stop at the local pastry shop where I got a wonderful Hazelnut Croissant
.
My trip to London can be summarized as 2 hours on the tube, 2 hours wandering lost in the rain, and 1 hour eating. Maybe I should have just stayed in the nice bed at the hotel.
Back at the hotel there was only time for a brief nap in a bed that felt as good as it looked, before getting ready for Part Two of our journey to Africa. Although we had been told to be at the airport 3 1/2 before flight time, it took us less than 15 minutes to check our bags and clear Security, so we had 3 hours and 20 minutes before our flight. People watching, reading my Kindle, and sitting in the uncomfortable departure lounge chairs got old fairly quickly and time seemed to drag. Finally our gate was announced and we headed the the Gate--down the length of the terminal, down an escalator, a tram ride to the B gates in Terminal 5, up two very steep escalators to the Gate area. When it was finally time to board, it was back down another escalator to the jetway and then on to the plane. We were delayed at the gate, waiting for two missing passengers. Then we waited for almost an hour for clearance to leave the gate.
Finally, we took off with a 10 hour 45 minute flight to South Africa.
Maybe I Should Have Stayed in Bed
Thursday, May 26, 2011
London, England, United Kingdom
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2025-02-11