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This topic comprises 3 pages: 1 2 3
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Author
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Topic: Europe: Thoughts and Suggestions
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Leo Enticknap
Film God
Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000
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posted 11-25-2006 08:31 AM
Firstly, I'm sorry to break this to you but Heathrow is the shittiest airport in the history of the entire universe: American friends constantly complain of 2-3 hour queues to get through immigration, for one thing (I'm told that the only way to avoid this is to take a daytime flight from the East Coast to Heathrow, which leave around 8am EST and arrive around 9pm GMT). On Boxing Day, however (see below), it should be a bit better, as there'll probably be fewer flights coming in, and fewer passengers on each flight.
On a normal working day, the easiest and cheapest Heathrow to Gatwick transfer is as follows, but it takes a while. Take the Picadilly Line train of the Underground (tube) from Heathrow to Gloucester Road. The journey time is around 50 minutes. At Gloucester Road station change to the District or Circle Line westbound to Victoria (10 minutes). The ticket from Heathrow through to Victoria will cost you around £3-4. At Victoria go upstairs to the mainline (National Rail) stations. From there you have two options. One is the 'Gatwick Express' train, which is very quick (around 25 minutes) but is also pricey - around £15 I think. You can also take a normal commuter train on the same line (look for trains to Brighton), which takes a little bit longer and stops at one or two places (around 40 minutes) but is a lot cheaper. To be on the absolute safe side I would allow 2 1/2 hours from terminal to terminal. Make that 3 1/2 if you're doing the trip on a Sunday, when they frequently close railway lines for maintenance and put you on a bus instead. You might like to do this in reverse coming home, I guess.
I would be inclined to avoid the Heathrow Express (fast train) from Heathrow to London Paddington: it's hellish expensive, and by the time you've faffed about getting from Paddington to Victoria there'll be no significant time saving.
The quick and easy Heathrow to Gatwick solution is simply to take a taxi all the way. Assuming it isn't the rush hour, this should only take 30-40 minutes, but it'll cost you £50-70 depending on the traffic. Don't count on taxis being available on 26 December, though.
This is because, unlike in the US, 26 December is a public holiday, called Boxing Day, in Britain. There will be no public transport at all - 99.9% of the country's infrastructure remains closed throughout Christmas Day and into Boxing Day. Incidentally, a lot of Britain quite simply closes for the entire period between Christmas and the New Year (the university where I work is locked down from 22 December to 2 January, for example), and many British workers take that whole week as leave. Frankly, I'm afraid this probably isn't the easiest time to be visiting us. International airports are one of the few things that stay open for business as (very nearly) usual throughout.
If you know for sure that your National Express coach is operating on Boxing Day, I'd be inclined to take that in spite of the cost. They'll be absolutely no traffic on Boxing Day (you will be seeing the M25 - the outer beltway around London - in a very untypical state - it's normally known as Europe's biggest car park!), so once you're on it, you should be fine. If that coach isn't operating, I'm pretty sure that the only way you'll be able to get from Heathrow to Gatwick is to hire a car and drive round the M25. Demand is likely to be very high, and so I'd strongly advise trying to arrange this from the US before setting out.
On Boxing Day there will be pretty much no tourist attractions of any sort open. Some of the out-of-town shopping centres (malls) have started opening in recent years, but if I were you I'd be inclined to just get to Gatwick as quickly as possible, where, being a major international airport, there are likely to be restaurants and things operating. From the last time I transferred through there, I seem to remember that there's quite a good range of shops and restaurants in the departure area, though they might not all be open.
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Stephen Furley
Film God
Posts: 3059
From: Coulsdon, Croydon, England
Registered: May 2002
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posted 11-25-2006 01:09 PM
www.nationalexpress.com shows a frequent direct service between the airports on that day; I think this would be my chosen option.
The Heathrow Express train is not only expensive, but goes to Paddington station, which is not very convienient for most people. It was built where it is simple to be next to a very large canal basin, which was important at the time. There's a cheaper stopping train, but that also goes to Paddington. The Picadilly Line of the Underground takes ages, gets very crowded and does not have enough luggage space for an airport service. These are 'tube', i.e. deep-level bored tunnel, trains, and the tunnels are only 12 feet in diameter, so the trains are much smaller than main line ones.
There is another possibility, there is a bus, it used to be the 726, I think it's now the X26, which will take you from Heathrow to Croydon. It's very cheap, and stops at East Croydon station, from where it's probably about 15-20 minutes by train to Gawick.
As for the Boxing day problem, there's more transport running than there used to be, and routes to airports do tend to be those served.
For specific information about train services on that day, contact National Rail Enquiries, http://www.nationalrail.co.uk for rail services. Their telephone number is +44(0)20 7278 5240 if calling from outside the UK. From inside the UK it's: 08457 48 49 50
For information about just about any form of public transport in London, including taxis, call +44(0)20 7222 1234, or go to the Transport for London website at: http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl
You seem to have found the information for National Express coaches, but just in case, their website is at: http://www.nationalexpress.com. Their main telephone number is a special one, which I don't think will be accessible from outside the UK, which seems rather stupid. There are two ordinary numbers, one is for disabled passengers, and the other is a 24 hour number to 'contact us in an emergency'. I would suggest that not being provided with any other suitable number would be reasonable grounds for calling this one; it's +44(0)121 625 3278 The number from inside the UK is: 08705 808080
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Leo Enticknap
Film God
Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000
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posted 11-25-2006 04:46 PM
quote: Stephen Furley
The Heathrow Express train is not only expensive, but goes to Paddington station, which is not very convienient for most people. It was built where it is simple to be next to a very large canal basin, which was important at the time.
I wondered why they built that rail link right into about the one London main line station from which it's a long walk or a tube ride to pretty much anywhere in the city centre.
quote: Stephen Furley
The Picadilly Line of the Underground takes ages, gets very crowded and does not have enough luggage space for an airport service.
It takes a long time, but I've yet to find a quicker alternative; and that, IMHO, is yet another one of the reasons why I'd avoid Heathrow unless I had no other choice (or rather, if the only other choices were driving or going by train from York to London: it's a pain, but not as much of a pain as five hours on the M1 or three standing up in the corridor of a GNER train). The Heathrow Express dumps you at Paddington, and if you take a bus or a cab you'll end up crawling along the M4/A4 through the western suburbs.
That having been said, I've never had to use the tube with more luggage than an overnight bag. With three large suitcases it wouldn't be nice.
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Stephen Furley
Film God
Posts: 3059
From: Coulsdon, Croydon, England
Registered: May 2002
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posted 11-25-2006 05:59 PM
quote: Leo Enticknap
I wondered why they built that rail link right into about the one London main line station from which it's a long walk or a tube ride to pretty much anywhere in the city centre.
There wasn't really much choice; from that line you can't easily get to anywhere else. There was a proposal to build a connection to the lines into Waterloo; I think the main problem was that the approaches to that station are working at close to their maximum capacity. Oddly enough, there are a couple or routes which could, in theory, get you into Liverpool Street, on the other side of London, but it would be a long way round, and very slow. To get to just about anywhere else would mean reversing somewhere, sometimes more than once. As I said, the location of Paddington station itself is due to historical reasons, and makes no sense today. Things are better than they were; the main line to Heathrow was only built a few years ago, and the Underground didn't get extended there until about the early '70s. Before then it had to be bus or taxi; of course, to roads weren't so busy then.
Of course, London was there a long time before the railways were built, which didn't make thigs any easier. We ended up with lots of terminus stations, some of them poorly sited. I used to count 15 until a couple were closed, but some people claimed a different figure, depending on exactly what they included in the list. A rationalisation of London termini is something that Dr. Beeching (for those not in the UK, who have probably never heard of him he was British Railways chairman in the '60s, most famous for closing many lines) really should have done.
I think you've really got to question the judgement of somebody who would design and build a major international airport, one of the busyest in the World, without providing decent transport links to it. Any airport really should have either a railway or express bus service to it's city centre, with the capacity to handle large amounts of luggage. London's first airport, Croydon, had a station close to it with direct access to central London. Waddon station is still there but the airport is long gone. Why it's replacement, Heathrow, should have been built without, I don't know. In the '30s Gatwick was provided with a station, with a subway, the sort you walk thrugh, not one with trains, leading directly to a very nice terminal building; pictures here
When the airport was re-developed in the '50s she station was demolished, and a new one built nearby. The original terminal survives as offices. Gatwick remains the best-served of London's airports, with trains every few minutes to two major central London stations.
Luton used to be a bus ride from Luton station, and is now a somewhat shorter bus ride from a new airport station; still not very convienient.
Stanstead had a new branch built to it with a station at the airport some years ago now.
London City airport now has a branch of the Docklands Light Railway which stops right outside it, but that only opened this year. London does not have a good record of providing decent access to airports. If Crossrail is ever built then Heathrow could have a decent service to Central London, but I'm not holding my breath.
quote: Leo Enticknap
It takes a long time, but I've yet to find a quicker alternative; and that, IMHO, is yet another one of the reasons why I'd avoid Heathrow unless I had no other choice.
I agree, Heathrow is well worth avioding. Little consolation to you Jeremy; London really should be offering you better than this. Enjoy your trip; are you going anywhere else besides Vilnius?
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Leo Enticknap
Film God
Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000
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posted 11-26-2006 08:17 AM
Agreed entirely that all of London's airports have a big problem with public transport to the city centre. When I visited Berlin for the first time in January '05, I did the usual Internet research and read an article which stated that the cheap flights went to Schönefeld because the public transport from there to the city centre was significantly worse than that from Tegel. But, given that there was a £300 difference in the cost of flights, I decided to give Schönefeld a go. By 'significant diference' I discovered that the (German) author of that article meant 20 minutes as distinct from 15! Even though I arrived at about 1730 on a weekday evening, the trains were frequent, not at all overcrowded and the transfer only cost 1.90 euros. And this was at an Easyjet-served airport!
I suppose I might have been massively subsidised by the German taxpayer for that journey, but I can't help thinking that we really should be able to do something about the situation whereby it effectively takes at least an hour to get from any of London's airports into the city centre. Agreed too that of the whole crop, Gatwick is probably the easiest. BMI Baby used to do a daily flight from Teesside to Gatwick, which was very reasonably priced and always pretty full, but stopped it at the end of October. Furthermore, the return flight didn't leave until 9pm, so it was possible to get a full day in London and still have a drink with someone after the work day before heading home. It was a much shorter walk from the plane to the train at Gatwick, there was never any queue to buy a train ticket, and you got into town very quickly and painlessly. Now that's gone, and we're left with BMI mainline to Heathrow which costs more and leaves you to do battle with the Picadilly Line at the other end. Sigh.
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Jeremy Jorgenson
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1002
From: Chicago, IL, USA
Registered: Feb 2005
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posted 11-27-2006 05:31 AM
Thank you both for your replies Leo & Stephen!
1) Return journey is no problem, I fly into & out of Copenhagen, no airport switching. ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
2) When I was in London (for about 5 days) in June, my hotel was a few minutes walk from Paddington station, so it was very convenient for me. I guess I got lucky.
3) I've heard of Boxing Day, I guess I vaguely realized that it was the 26th, but what I didn't realize was that it was a public holiday. I'll most likely go with the National Express and just spend any spare time in Gatwick as Leo suggested.
quote: Stephen Furley
Enjoy your trip; are you going anywhere else besides Vilnius?
I'll be staying in Kaunas, but beyond Kaunas and Vilnius, I don't know ... no plans yet. I'm pretty sure I'll get around to the main points of Lithuania, I wouldn't mind visiting some other countries too, we'll see.
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