To Southampton … via London

Our travel luck held! We are now settled into our room at the Southampton Holiday Inn … 90 minutes earlier than expected!

The first bus ride — from Stansted Airport to the Victoria Coach Station in London — was uneventful. We even got a surprise ‘free’ panoramic tour of London that gave us glimpses of some of the city’s iconic landmarks … Big Ben and Parliament; London Bridge; the Thames and the London Eye … amongst others.

Once we reached the coach station, we were able to switch from our 7:00p ticketed departure to an earlier bus at 5:30p. We had just enough time to grab some yummy meat pies for a quick dinner before it was time to board the bus.

Getting out of London was the worst part of our travel day. It took about 45 minutes to do so in stop-and-go rush hour traffic. It was a bit chilly on the bus … even with the extra layers National Express had strongly suggested we bring with us. Once on the motorway, however, it was smooth going. Nightfall hid from our eyes what was outside the windows, so I whiled away the time by reading my book; Mui napped.

A short Uber ride from the Harbor Parade Coach Station in Southampton brought us to our hotel; Deniz took a cab to his hotel. We will meet up at the cruise terminal tomorrow.

Time to get some shuteye now.

(I’m not one for ‘through-dirty-windows-photography’ but I could not resist snapping a few memory shots … attached to this footprint in lieu of a boring photo of our hotel room at the Holiday Inn.)Read more