Letter From Cathy Roha
Cathy travelled over for September 2001's no-show and was stuck in Europe a few days while the airlines were grounded following the attack on the World Trade Centre. She returned in 2002. She kindly provided this information.
Observations on London, useful for ACUE delegates
I thought I'd give you some ideas to pass along to people flying in for April's ACU.
The Kings Cross/St Pancras area is very convenient for this journey. It is directly on the Piccadilly underground line from Heathrow (£3.60, about 50 minutes) or if one wants a more scenic, more expensive (either £6 or £7, can't remember which), and longer trip it is also a stop for the A2 bus.
The first Sunday morning train towards Heathrow leaves Kings Cross/St Pancras around 0700.
Hotel California, 4-8 Belgrove Street,
just half a block south from Euston Road (across which are the two train
stations) would be a good hotel to stay in.
Rates: Their website is: www.californiahotel.co.uk and their email: enquiries@californiahotel.co.uk.
I did not stay here, but was planning to for Saturday night. It is clean
and attractive, and they do start serving breakfast at 7am Sunday morning.
If/when I come back I will reserve here.
The Kings Cross/St Pancras area is undergoing "improvements" so traffic and sidewalks (do you call them pavements?) are barricaded and diverted somewhat. But this is a good location for snacks and quick food, books, newspapers. The post office direct across from KC (just around the corner from the B&B) has internet access computers (£1 for 30 minutes, £1.5 for one hour) but it is probably closed on Sunday mornings. That would work better if one were coming to London a few days before ACUE to get over jetlag and see some sights. (I assume you know not to schedule your long-distance travellers to give detailed presentations the next morning after they arrive.) [yes, we do!]
And in that same vein, since Kings Cross is at the junction of quite a few underground lines, even though it is a distance from most of the tourist attractions, they are all easy to get to. Right next to St. Pancras is the British Library, a stunningly beautiful building with very interesting treasures on display. Usually they open at 0930, but Sundays at 1100. I don't know the hours of St. Pancras' left luggage ("baggage check").
The rail tickets would have been many pounds cheaper if I had bought them the day before travel and/or if I had been willing to travel after 0900. Round trip was somewhere in the £70s range.
David NC adds:
| If there's only one thing you
have time to do in London, you should try the London Eye, a
giant ferris wheel on the embankment, a short walk from Waterloo
Station - opposite Whitehall and the Houses of Parliament. It's
so popular, you should get your ticket in advance over the web, and
its 10% cheaper this way. Tickets are organised in half hour periods
and they like you to arrive in good time before your flight, say 30
mins. If you bought your ticket, bypass the long ticket office queue
to to to the collections window. Links: London Eye on London Net / London Eye's own website / Visual tour of the London Eye / |
 |
Visitors by Train from EuroStar will arrive
in Waterloo Terminal. From there, take the Underground to
St Pancras. Best route is to take the Bakerloo Line to Oxford
Circus, change train on the same level, nearby platform, and take
the Piccadilly line to St Pancras.
Admire the Architecture of the St Pancras and Kings Cross
Railway station frontages and the next-door British Library if
you get time to get outside to have a look. The two stations represent
a polarised Architectural philosophy - one is an quasi-ecclesiastical
monument hiding the embarrassing fact that there is an iron shed behind;
the other is triumphally functional in expressing the whole idea of travel.
Trains from St Pancras to Nottingham leave at 5 mins to the hour (fast)
and on the hour (slow).
Public transport on early Sunday mornings to Birmingham Airport from Nottingham
is virtually non existent, so plan to work around this.
Cathy Roha adds, about Birmingham:
Before booking a flight to London Heathrow, visitors should check out Birmingham International Airport as an alternate route. If one is not planning to spend extra time enjoying London and the south of England, or is not taking advantage of an extraordinarily low airfare deal, this could be a better route. BHX can be reached from major US cities via Chicago (American Airlines), Newark (Continental), Frankfurt (Lufthansa), Paris (Air France), and Amsterdam (KLM).
A free shuttle bus goes from the airport to the nearby rail station, and then it is perhaps 1-1/2 to 2 hours by train to Nottingham (about 15 pounds one way) with several departures per hour (fewer on Sunday). Taxi to UN is about 6 pounds plus tip.
After the event, it may be possible to get a
ride back to the Birmingham Airport from another participant [I enjoyed
Alan Murray's delightful company and Lexus with GPS]. The Novotel (just
across from the terminal!) is an extremely convenient business-class hotel.
The standard single room lists at 114 pounds but can be had for 58 pounds
through an early reservation with Superbreak (www.superbreak.com). Lovely
restaurant for a delicious dinner, but breakfast is less expensive in
the terminal. The public part of the terminal has shops including a 24-hour
small grocery for filling those odd spaces in luggage with Branston pickle,
treacle pudding, Heinz' sandwich spread, Cadbury's, Horlicks, tea....
Once past security check there is a larger shopping
area, bookstore, duty-free shop (though not as large as in Amsterdam,
Frankfurt or Paris), several restaurants, coffee bars, and a Burger King.
I think this adds up to a more restful journey both ways.
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