Prague – Stupid London Trains

Prague – Day 1 Friday 03/10/2008

You can never rely on the London Tube System because a majority of the time there are continuing refurbishments or upgrades, there’s a suicide resulting in delays or a particular station becomes overcrowded.

My plan on arriving at Kings Cross station to catch the train to Luton Airport almost didn’t happen. Firstly the train from Seven Sisters to Kings Cross (3 stops) was out of service due to an accident somewhere along the line.

So I took the National Connect train into Liverpool Street station then hopped on the Metropolitan train to Kings Cross which took an extra 30 minutes. As the train was approaching Farringdon Station and with Kings Cross station after that, the train driver over the PA system said that the train was not going to stop at Kings Cross because of overcrowding! Someone really didn’t want me to go to Kings Cross station this evening.

I got off at Farringdon station and thought about walking to Kings Cross station until I noticed that there were trains from Farringdon that were going to Luton Airport so I got lucky! I thought it would be all smooth sailing from here to Luton Airport but I hit another snag when I heard voices saying that this train didn’t stop at Luton Airport Parkway (where I would catch the bus to the terminal) but going passed it and stopping at Luton.

Eventually after checking some maps inside the train, I had to hop off at St Albans then wait for another train to get where I wanted. What an eventful way to get to the airport!

At least the plane left on time and arrived in Prague earlier than expected. I didn’t expect Passport Control Officers to have any sense of humor at all, but once they saw my Australian passport, one of them joked about Skippy the bush kangaroo.

Outside in the waiting area, I was to meet someone holding my name. Since it was late in the night, I couldn’t be assed getting public transport to the hotel. I was expecting your average taxi but instead I was whisked away in a 7-seater black Mercedes van with myself as the only passenger.

It only took about 15-20 minutes to get to Hotel Silenzio and the price tag was around £20. At your average hotel, normally it is quite accessible in terms of entry and so on. Hotel Silenzio looked more like an estate with a huge gate at the front entrance. However looks can be deceiving as this 4 star hotel was quite glamorous inside. I really liked the size of my room, the décor and just the comfort of it all. My only complaint would be the heating – yes it gets cold at night but I didn’t need to have the heater on all night like at the snow resorts.

smiles