UK: Arrival to Canterbury
Sep. 4th, 2008 11:36 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
deirdreWe arrived at Heathrow's brand new terminal 5 on Wednesday after our overnight flight on British Airways. One of the things I like the most about BA transatlantic flights is the choice of movies. It's gotten even better, because it's now completely on demand. I watched three movies I hadn't seen: Made of Honor, a second romantic comedy I've forgotten the name of with Cameron Diaz, and The Big Lebowski. In addition, I watched bits of Don't Mess With the Zohan. I also re-watched the opening of Iron Man, but realized it wasn't something I'd care to watch on a flight. Unlike US airlines, none of the scenes or swear words were cut, which was refreshing.
As is common with this flight, we'd arrived early, but we'd had to go into a holding pattern, so the little map that shows our flight pattern looked like it had gotten dizzy by the time we landed (I believe we managed four loops during our holding pattern). Unlike some of our prior Heathrow experiences, there were no baggage delays, and we headed way through immigration and customs with no delays at all -- just a lot of walking.
We'd intended to take the bus to Canterbury, but one of the women at the info desk suggested the train, and suggested that we take the tube to King's Cross. A word about the tube connection from Terminal 5: it gets an A+ -- it's easy to manage with luggage. So we did what she'd suggested, only to find no train at all to Canterbury. I suspect she was thinking that we should take the Eurostar, which is very fast, but goes about 25 minutes from Canterbury, and isn't the least expensive option by a long shot. The Eurostar has express trains to Paris and Brussels through the chunnel, but some of them stop at a town sort of equidistant from Canterbury and Dover.
Speaking of, we'd not found a good way to get from Dover to Canterbury, possibly because I was looking at the wrong train station previously. Canterbury has two stations: Canterbury West was close to our inn, but that was the end of the line; Canterbury East trains generally continue on to Dover and run every half hour.
So we get routing via a nice man at King's Cross who said Victoria Station really was a better choice (ironically, where I'd originally thought we'd be getting the bus), and then get on the train with a three-train schedule stating we should change trains at London Bridge. Then, when we're on the train, and one stop shy of London Bridge, the conductor says there's an incident at London Bridge, and if we were going there or going to change there, we should get off at the current station and see an agent for "other transit options."
The agent also said that we'd be better off at Victoria Station, at which point I lost it, and asked for what trains we could take from here that would get us to Canterbury. So he wrote the instructions down, and it involved getting on a train in a few minutes and making one more change. In other words, no more complicated than the route we'd just had to abandon.
The southeast of England is quite beautiful, with gentle rolling hills, lots of small farms, and dotted with towns and the occasional city. We changed trains without event, except for the fact that every time we hauled our luggage around, it seemed heavier.
We finally arrive at Canterbury East. In the past, there was a wall around the city, and the East station is at about 7 o'clock on the dial just outside the wall. We pick up a tourist map and discover that our inn is at about twelve o'clock just inside the ring -- about as far as one can go and still be in the main part of Canterbury. Fortunately, Canterbury is a small town. Undaunted by luggage or cobblestone streets, we head off to the inn, finding it at the furthest possible point on Mill street from where we'd started. We arrived at about four o'clock in the afternoon, which is about eight a.m.
We stayed at The Miller's Arms, which had been part of the old mill, and was now an inn owned by a small brewery in the southeast, Shepherd Neame. For three adults, a room rate of £95 was a steal, especially by London standards. Being tired (we'd been up more than 24 hours by this point), we took a nap before heading down for dinner. We were tired enough that we weren't feeling especially clever about dinner, and just went downstairs. This afforded me the opportunity to have bangers and mash for dinner, which I took advantage of.
After setting our alarms, we headed off to sleep for the night. For me, since I wasn't in a class where I could use my CPAP, this was my first sleep in almost 48 hours.
As is common with this flight, we'd arrived early, but we'd had to go into a holding pattern, so the little map that shows our flight pattern looked like it had gotten dizzy by the time we landed (I believe we managed four loops during our holding pattern). Unlike some of our prior Heathrow experiences, there were no baggage delays, and we headed way through immigration and customs with no delays at all -- just a lot of walking.
We'd intended to take the bus to Canterbury, but one of the women at the info desk suggested the train, and suggested that we take the tube to King's Cross. A word about the tube connection from Terminal 5: it gets an A+ -- it's easy to manage with luggage. So we did what she'd suggested, only to find no train at all to Canterbury. I suspect she was thinking that we should take the Eurostar, which is very fast, but goes about 25 minutes from Canterbury, and isn't the least expensive option by a long shot. The Eurostar has express trains to Paris and Brussels through the chunnel, but some of them stop at a town sort of equidistant from Canterbury and Dover.
Speaking of, we'd not found a good way to get from Dover to Canterbury, possibly because I was looking at the wrong train station previously. Canterbury has two stations: Canterbury West was close to our inn, but that was the end of the line; Canterbury East trains generally continue on to Dover and run every half hour.
So we get routing via a nice man at King's Cross who said Victoria Station really was a better choice (ironically, where I'd originally thought we'd be getting the bus), and then get on the train with a three-train schedule stating we should change trains at London Bridge. Then, when we're on the train, and one stop shy of London Bridge, the conductor says there's an incident at London Bridge, and if we were going there or going to change there, we should get off at the current station and see an agent for "other transit options."
The agent also said that we'd be better off at Victoria Station, at which point I lost it, and asked for what trains we could take from here that would get us to Canterbury. So he wrote the instructions down, and it involved getting on a train in a few minutes and making one more change. In other words, no more complicated than the route we'd just had to abandon.
The southeast of England is quite beautiful, with gentle rolling hills, lots of small farms, and dotted with towns and the occasional city. We changed trains without event, except for the fact that every time we hauled our luggage around, it seemed heavier.
We finally arrive at Canterbury East. In the past, there was a wall around the city, and the East station is at about 7 o'clock on the dial just outside the wall. We pick up a tourist map and discover that our inn is at about twelve o'clock just inside the ring -- about as far as one can go and still be in the main part of Canterbury. Fortunately, Canterbury is a small town. Undaunted by luggage or cobblestone streets, we head off to the inn, finding it at the furthest possible point on Mill street from where we'd started. We arrived at about four o'clock in the afternoon, which is about eight a.m.
We stayed at The Miller's Arms, which had been part of the old mill, and was now an inn owned by a small brewery in the southeast, Shepherd Neame. For three adults, a room rate of £95 was a steal, especially by London standards. Being tired (we'd been up more than 24 hours by this point), we took a nap before heading down for dinner. We were tired enough that we weren't feeling especially clever about dinner, and just went downstairs. This afforded me the opportunity to have bangers and mash for dinner, which I took advantage of.
After setting our alarms, we headed off to sleep for the night. For me, since I wasn't in a class where I could use my CPAP, this was my first sleep in almost 48 hours.