Day 38 - Greece- London UK

Well it was actually a day of automobile, plane, monorail, train, taxi today! Phew a long day but easy peasy really. For all that we have seen on tv about Easyjet I have to say each time we fly them, they are excellent. They are the only airline who fly Crete direct to the UK which saves a stop in Athens airport like on the way over.

We left home at 9.30am and you have to get the petrol in the rental car right cos most companies give it to you empty and tell you to bring it back the same. Managed that fine and dropped the rental then into the Heraklion airport. Easyjet have a rule that you can take cabin luggage at any weight, as long as it fits in the baggage frame. We had to guess-ti-mate our bags weights and squash all the heavy stuff into our backpacks- and guess what?? 18.4kgs and 19.5 kgs- spot on! (At 25quid per kilo over, you don’t want to guess wrong!)

We had also purchased speedy boarding so you have first boarding for seats on the plane as they don’t allocate them. Hate that idea so always pay for it and after the bus took us out on the tarmac we got off first and were lucky to get the first row seats. They let all the families with small kids go on first too so there were a few people!

Talked to a nice English girl beside me, who gave us some tips on the Gatwick express etc. 3 ½ hours and we landed at Gatwick. Got through a longish line in immigration- funny for the day was when a Indian woman and her husband were going to try and jump the line all us non-EU people were patiently waiting in, then obviously decided better of it- walked back and out to the side where there is an Iris scanning booth that people who are registered can use, reading their eye instead of going through the normal lining up. They walk into the booth which is glass and everyone can see, but the had no idea what it was and it didn’t get them their jump in the line- instead they were locked in and the recorded voice kept saying “please look in the mirror and l\move your eye closer” Everyone cracked up as it served them right! Graeme wanted to film it for you-tube lol!

Got through immigration to find everyone else waiting as there was no baggage carousel allocated for about another half an hour.

Got the cool monorail from the north terminal to the south one to catch the train to London. The monorail is just like the one in KL, Malaysia.
The Gatwick express may be a bit more expensive, but with no stop and half the time to Victoria than any others, it is easy and worthwhile.

Then got our first London cab! Always wanted to ride in one but never had the need before. The cabbie was really nice, he thought we were Australian ( Its always either are you English or Australian?!)

Got to the Thistle hotel in Hyde Park to our ‘suite’ (what we would call a really nice room) but I guess right opposite Hyde park and usually costing $600 pn it has a good reputation! Matt in England had sent me their special they were advertising before we came and it’s a lovely old hotel with very respectful staff.

We got out and went for a walk- Bayswater Road is extremely long! Walked km’s down to Marble Arch- sooo many people, you have to soak it all up! We got our bearings and then went to a pub established in 1721 as a coaching inn. It is reputed to be the place where the sayings “One for the road” and “He’s on the wagon” came from as Marble Arch used to have another name I cant remember, where all the hangings took place.

When the men were on their way to the gallows, the jailer would transport them in the iron wagon cage and pull up there so they could have one for the road. Hes on the wagon came when they left after the final pint and meant they were never coming back! All that from a pub selling bangers and mash and fish, chips and mushy peas!

Marble Arch

Walked back to our hotel and had the most wonderful bath with tonnes of hot water- noice! We are going to go to Camden markets hopefully tomorrow after we suss out the transport and see if our old oyster cards still work!