Day 2 and 3 – Los Angeles to London

OK, I’ve had my ride on the Boeing 777. The plane itself is big, all right … but it features two-five-two seating in the economy cabin and you really do feel packed in. I still prefer the 767.

That said, the American Airlines flight was fine and, in fact, we had a tailwind for much of the way. At one point during the flight, our ground speed was well over 600 mph and that helped put us into Heathrow about 45 minutes ahead of schedule. But even reduced to 9 hours and 25 minutes, it’s still a damn long flight.

Immediately after zipping through Immigration, I almost literally bumped into a young man doing on-the-spot ticketing for the Heathrow Express, a train that is walking distance from where you pass through Customs and which takes airline passengers directly to Paddington Station in downtown London. It’s a 15 minute ride and for probably half that time the train is traveling at 120 miles-per-hour. Very slick and efficient. A train of some eight or then cars – clean, spacious and comfortable – and they run quite frequently.

I am now comfortably situated in the Megaro Hotel. It’s small, the room is quite compact, but everything I need. More to the point, Saint Pancras Station is less than 100 yards from here and it is from there that I will take the Eurostar through the Chunnel to Brussels early Saturday morning. One more thoughtful convenience arranged by Simon Hodge of Railbookers. By way of thanks,
I shall look forward to bying him a beer tomorrow evening.