We woke up at 7 am in Sorrento and quickly got ready. All our bags were ready to go when we went upstairs to the top floor breakfast room. We had cereal, yogurt, croissant and latte for breakfast and then checked out of our hotel a little after 8 am. Then we walkeyd to the nearby square where our airport transfer service car and driver were waiting. It took us about an hour to reach Naples airport.
We checked-in our bags around 10 am and then sat at one of the very comfortable lounge couches for about an hour. During that time, we used Rick Steves' pocket guidebook for London to plan out our trip. We passed through passport control and then boarded our plane around 11:30 am. The flight was delayed by a few minutes and then the pilot decided to take a longer route since apparently the labor strike in France is still affecting air traffic! After a two and a half hour duration flight, we landed at the Gatwick airport in London at 2:30 pm local time, after a one hour time adjustment from Italy. We got some sleep on the flight and used the remaining time to do some more London sightseeing planning using our very helpful guidebook.
The immigration processing line moved slow so we had to wait about 15 minutes for our turn. After we had passed immigration, it took another 20-25 minutes to get our bags since the baggage claim information screen was displaying the wrong carousel number so everyone was waiting at the wrong one initially. Once we finally got our bags around 3 pm, we purchased a couple of Nando's peri peri chicken wraps for a late lunch. Then after buying train tickets, we hopped on the Gatwick Express train and ate our wraps during the 20 minute ride. It was a very smooth ride and we disembarked at the London Bridge train station. Then we took a taxi to our hotel and were in our room at 4:30 pm after checking-in.
London is very different from North America and possibly the rest of Europe as well. It's unique - I'll give an example. The official London black taxi is a special car that we haven't seen anywhere else in the world so it's possibly a custom built car/design just for London taxis. It doesn't have a trunk in the back and the seat is all the way in the back. You have to help yourself by loading your luggage in front of your seat at your feet behind the taxi driver. The cars are right hand drive like Pakistan but the speed limits are in miles per hour like the US.
Our hotel is in Central London and one of the best ones where we've stayed. They provide the usual perks of a five-star hotel like turn down service at night but also go beyond that. They have given us a smartphone with mobile maps and GPS that is free to use! It came in really handy later in the evening when we had to meet up with our friends from LUMS Sherry and Sana who live in London. We took showers to freshen up and then left our hotel a little before 7 pm.
We took the underground train, called the tube, for about 40 minutes after buying the Oyster Card that's needed to travel on the tube. Luckily, Samia had her Oyster Card from last year when she was in London for her MBA summer exchange semester so we only needed to buy just one new card and loaded credit in her old card. After getting off the tube, we walked for about ten minutes to reach a Persian restaurant that our friends had picked. The food was amazing. We had two appetizers, one made with eggplant and the other was yogurt with mint. Then we had a huge mixed platter with all kinds of kababs to share, in addition to lamb shank. Everything was delicious, specially the touch of real pomegranate seeds on the plain white rice. The dinner was our friends' treat which was very nice of them! They even dropped us back to our hotel. After that, we walked over to the local supermarket to buy water. We also got a couple of croissants for breakfast since there is no complimentary breakfast at this hotel. Till the next update from the capital of England, take care and goodbye!
We checked-in our bags around 10 am and then sat at one of the very comfortable lounge couches for about an hour. During that time, we used Rick Steves' pocket guidebook for London to plan out our trip. We passed through passport control and then boarded our plane around 11:30 am. The flight was delayed by a few minutes and then the pilot decided to take a longer route since apparently the labor strike in France is still affecting air traffic! After a two and a half hour duration flight, we landed at the Gatwick airport in London at 2:30 pm local time, after a one hour time adjustment from Italy. We got some sleep on the flight and used the remaining time to do some more London sightseeing planning using our very helpful guidebook.
The immigration processing line moved slow so we had to wait about 15 minutes for our turn. After we had passed immigration, it took another 20-25 minutes to get our bags since the baggage claim information screen was displaying the wrong carousel number so everyone was waiting at the wrong one initially. Once we finally got our bags around 3 pm, we purchased a couple of Nando's peri peri chicken wraps for a late lunch. Then after buying train tickets, we hopped on the Gatwick Express train and ate our wraps during the 20 minute ride. It was a very smooth ride and we disembarked at the London Bridge train station. Then we took a taxi to our hotel and were in our room at 4:30 pm after checking-in.
London is very different from North America and possibly the rest of Europe as well. It's unique - I'll give an example. The official London black taxi is a special car that we haven't seen anywhere else in the world so it's possibly a custom built car/design just for London taxis. It doesn't have a trunk in the back and the seat is all the way in the back. You have to help yourself by loading your luggage in front of your seat at your feet behind the taxi driver. The cars are right hand drive like Pakistan but the speed limits are in miles per hour like the US.
Our hotel is in Central London and one of the best ones where we've stayed. They provide the usual perks of a five-star hotel like turn down service at night but also go beyond that. They have given us a smartphone with mobile maps and GPS that is free to use! It came in really handy later in the evening when we had to meet up with our friends from LUMS Sherry and Sana who live in London. We took showers to freshen up and then left our hotel a little before 7 pm.
We took the underground train, called the tube, for about 40 minutes after buying the Oyster Card that's needed to travel on the tube. Luckily, Samia had her Oyster Card from last year when she was in London for her MBA summer exchange semester so we only needed to buy just one new card and loaded credit in her old card. After getting off the tube, we walked for about ten minutes to reach a Persian restaurant that our friends had picked. The food was amazing. We had two appetizers, one made with eggplant and the other was yogurt with mint. Then we had a huge mixed platter with all kinds of kababs to share, in addition to lamb shank. Everything was delicious, specially the touch of real pomegranate seeds on the plain white rice. The dinner was our friends' treat which was very nice of them! They even dropped us back to our hotel. After that, we walked over to the local supermarket to buy water. We also got a couple of croissants for breakfast since there is no complimentary breakfast at this hotel. Till the next update from the capital of England, take care and goodbye!
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