Round The World and other travels
A frequent flyer's collection of trip diaries
This is: The Portuguese Connection (2012)
First Stop: London
Preparing to set off on my first long-haul trip in six months, I felt disconcertingly out of practice. Being a little rusty at something usually has consequences and these may even be serious, depending on the nature of the activity involved. In this case, the main effect was limited to a fear that I might forget some vital item when packing. A secondary consequence was that I left home far too early. Yes, it was a weekday and yes, it was rush hour. But it was Friday and it appeared that, even on a grey and damp November morning, the idea of turning this into a long weekend had proved to be an attractive one for many commuters. At any rate, the traffic was much lighter than I remembered it and I arrived at the airport ridiculously early.
| After breezing through the required formalities, I settled into the original British Airways lounge. (A second lounge had been acquired from former competitor bmi earlier in the year.) Surprisingly, the facility became near-deserted after the Heathrow flight prior to mine was called. I had a bowl of bran flakes and a cappuccino to help pass the time. The first boarding announcement for my flight was made just as I strolled up to the gate area. |
  ABOVE: The 'native' BA lounge at Edinburgh |
(Link to flight log in side panel)
After
picking up my suitcase, I had some smoked salmon sandwiches and a
latte for lunch at the curiously named Giraffe juice bar
and coffee shop in Terminal 5, before embarking on a three-stage
rail journey to my hotel. This involved taking a Heathrow Express
train to Heathrow Central, a Heathrow Connect to Ealing Boadway and
a one-stop District Line ride to Ealing Common. Unfortunately I had
a 27-minute wait at Heathrow Central - that's the trouble with a
half-hourly service. I could have made the whole journey by
Underground, but felt that full-size trains represented the better
option when travelling with heavy luggage.
When the train rides were finally over, it was a very easy walk to the hotel - even shorter than it had looked on Google Streetview!
It was interesting that, in advance of its planned
re-launch as a DoubleTree in May 2013, The London Ealing Hotel had
almost no Hilton group branding at all. I was upgraded to a
so-called 'Studio', given a free breakfast and offered a 2pm
check-out at this stage, which I would later successfully extend to
4pm. With the room turning out to be tiny and decidedly basic in
nature, the reason for the lack of branding became clear: in its
ex-Ramada condition, this property was a very long way from being up
to Hilton standards.
Undeterred, I reorganised my belongings and retraced my steps to
Ealing Common station.
I rode the Piccadilly Line to Covent Garden, had a look around the market (which was already very much in Christmas mode) and picked up a pre-booked theatre ticket for later in the evening.
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| With daylight rapidly
disappearing, I then took a further walk around a variety of
West End sights and found somewhere to have a relatively
early pizza dinner. My chosen entertainment for the evening
was Agatha Christie's The Mousetrap, now in its
60th year at St Martin's Theatre. Despite having seen the
play on at least two previous occasions, I had completely
forgotten who 'dunnit' and enjoyed the unfolding yarn, set
in the prim and proper surroundings of a bygone age, as much
as everyone else. |
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LEFT:
On a trip that would soon take me to Hong Kong, it was
amazing to find this while strolling around Central London |
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On returning to my hotel room, I was dismayed to
find that I had noisy neighbours.
Thankfully they settled down for the night about ten minutes before
midnight.