We caught an evening flight out of Dulles in Washington, D.C. on a British Airways 747. My wife and I made the trip with a couple of our friends, so we occupied the middle section of the traditional 3-4-3 seating arrangement in coach. We left about 11:30 p.m., and the on-plane staff was both courteous and professional. We were served a chicken and rice dish with apple pie for dessert at approximately 12:30 a.m. (EST). It was quite passable for airline food. After being well-fed, I contented myself by wearily flipping through the in-air entertainment and following the plane’s progress on the back-of-seat monitors for the next few hours. (London had always been a destination I wanted to visit, so I was too excited to sleep well after the late dinner.)
I kept thinking to myself that the last member of my family to visit Europe was my father in the 1940s. His trip, however, as a sergeant in the U.S. Infantry during the Second World War could scarce compare to the speed and convenience of today’s travel. It was the sacrifice of his generation that makes it possible for us to travel so easily back and forth across the world. As dawn broke over the North Atlantic, the attentive crew members were back with breakfast and some very welcome coffee. We landed around 10am and boarded the buses for customs. After a cursory check of our passports by the customs officials, we collected our luggage and caught the Heathrow Express for Paddington Station.
Our first glimpse of London was of warehouses and aging industries. Upon arrival at Paddington, however, we truly felt like we were in the London we expected. We even saw the famous Paddington bear walking around and greeting young rail passengers. We made our way down to the Tube and bought seven-day Oyster cards – these are simply multi-day passes that allow you to take the Tube wherever you need. I highly recommend them for tourists who are planning to use the Tube extensively.
Our hotel was just a few stops away on the Bakerloo line. We stayed at the Marriott Maida Vale. It was a nice clean and quiet hotel, but a bit off the beaten-path. This doesn’t matter much if you are taking the Tube to your destinations, though. We had a quick, but expensive, lunch at Cafe Maurice (the hotel bar) and then spent the afternoon unpacking and resting.
We asked the concierge for dinner recommendations, and we were sent to a small Italian restaurant outside Paddington station called Concordia Notte. It was a small, authentic place with basic pasta dishes. It was one of our cheaper dinners the whole time we were there. After our dinner, we ordered dessert and headed back to our hotel. It was cool and drizzling – authentic London weather indeed. 🙂