Sorrento to London, Day 13, 26th February 2016

We were up in the dark this morning. We had an 10 o'clock appointment in Naples with a plane to London that we didn't want to miss. Neither of us were keen to get back on the Circumvesuviana with luggage again, especially early in the morning when there wasn't likely to be many people about. People in Italy didn't really get going until well after dawn break.

5.45 in the morning found us out the front of the train station in Sorrento, loading our bags onto a shuttle bus to Naples. For €10 each we decided it was worth the money to get a direct shuttle to the airport, rather than catch the train into Naples, and have to swap over to another train to the airport. We had tried to book the Curreri Viaggi shuttle bus the night before on our tablet computer, but the website kept crashing out and of course at night, the booking line was unmanned. We turned up in the hopes we could board without a reservation and thankfully it was fine.

The bus bumped along the coast for a while, stopping in at small towns to pick other passengers up. 

Once at Naples airport it was a simple check-in procedure that was fast and quick to get through. One of the benefits of flying out of a smaller airport is the reduced time spent in security queues.

Just after we got through security I noticed that my inner thighs felt somewhat cooler than the rest of my body. To my absolute horror, when I looked at my jeans to see if I had perhaps forgotten to zip up or something, I saw that they were completey torn on my inner thighs, up to my underwear line. And of course, I had just checked all my baggage so I had no other clothes on me. There was nothing I could do but tie a jumper around my waist and keep my legs crossed the entire flight to London.

We arrived in London Gatwick airport 2 and a half hours later. Hugh had warned me that English airports were horrors to get through, but once again, we managed to breeze right through. Passport control had nobody else at waiting in the non-EU line (in comparison to the quite large EU line), so for once there was a benefit to being Australian.

Once we picked up our baggage, my first priority was changing into pants that weren't ripped, not only to save myself from embarrassment, but also because London was cold!

I had already booked us tickets on the Gatwick express (it was cheaper pre-booked online) so we walked right onto that for our ride into Victoria. 

Those first few moments standing in the hub of Victoria station were confusing. People offered help and we were so used to Italy that we had to remind ourselves that they (probably) weren't out to pilfer our belongings. A work colleague had lent me 2 oyster cards so we didn't have to bother about trying to find somewhere to find one. Back in a country with English as a first language we were quickly able to figure out the top-up machines and loaded some credit on the cards.

From there we followed the London equivalent of the yellow brick road (basically a painted yellow line) which lead us to the Circle Line tube stop.

8 stops from Victoria station we pulled our bags out of the tube at Monument station, and walked a blissfully short distance (2 streets) to our hotel (Premier Inn).

London was a cold shock to the system after sunny Sorrento, so once we had made it up to our room and collapsed for a short while, we delved into our bags to bring out our thermals, gloves, scarves and beanies to layer up. 

Somehow our entire day had been taken up by transport (shuttle bus, plane, train, tube). All that sitting was exhausting.

A friend of mine who had lived in London for a year had recommended Brick Lane to us for meals.  It just so happened to be that part of the London Craft Beer Festival was being held at Brick Lane this week, so we made our way back to the Tube and out to Brick Lane. There were quite a few pubs and other small alcohol-sellers that we could see where participating in the Craft Beer Festival. Hugh, being a craft beer lover, was very excited. I was excited for the street food. Whenever we travel, we love to eat the local street food. Even in Brisbane, nothing is better than getting food from a truck. 

We didn't stay out too long, before heading home. We did stop at an amazing chocolate shop, Dark Sugars. My mouth was watering just from the smell of the place! The shop was stocked with chocolate cups filled with alcohol, slabs and chunks of dark chocolate, pralines, and metallic round chocolate balls.

Definitely the best place to end our day at!