11th - 12th of October – London, pre-race

I had decided on spending frequent flier points to get to London, unfortunately that meant the only viable option for me was to have a layover in Oslo on the way with a departure from Copenhagen at 0600. While it was horrifically early it also meant that I wouldn’t lose out on much and still have half a day in London on arrival. As there was no suitable trains or busses from home that could get me to the airport in time, I decided to spend the night in a hotel near the airport instead. While it increased the overall price of the trip it did make the morning significantly manageable. 

So around 0500 I arrived groggily at the airport, the same time as when the lounge opened which meant that I ended up being the first one entering. It’s has a bit of a surreal feeling entering a completely empty lounge. The food was out, though, so everything was fine, despite the time of day. I expected that at least on the first flight there would be no breakfast due to the short distance but it turned out that on both flights we were served breakfast. Triple breakfast? Not a bad start for the trip.

Arriving in London we would have had a great view of the centre if it hadn’t been for the dense cloud layer covering the entire city. Other than that everything went according to plan and less than an hour after deplaning I exited the Heathrow Express train on Paddington Station. Finding the hotel turned out to be easier than expected – almost straight ahead the entire way – but arriving at the hotel at 1130 the room wasn’t ready so I took to wandering around in the neighbourhood instead.

A lot of renovations were being done throughout the city. 

At least the Londoners has gotten the point of wrapping their Big Ben to avoid accidents.

I headed south through Trafalgar Square (which pretty much had been taken over by Extinction Rebellion) before roaming Westminster, passed by Victoria Station, Buckingham Palace before returning to the hotel around 1430 and checked in. Getting a room on 6^th floor was great, but it turned out the view from the small window was less than impressive and the room (including bathroom) was smaller than my bedroom at home. At first I thought there was no heating at all in the room but I realized later that it just didn’t work. When letting them know in the reception they gave me an electrical heater. It worked fine, but in the already limited floor space it felt a fair bit… impractical.

My large and spacious room.

With a wonderful room (blinds could not be raised).

I met with the rest of the group in the late afternoon in the reception to get my bib-number – and as it turned out not much else. It also took a while to figure out how they handled baggage at the starting area, and I only got three safety pins for the number. Fantastic.

I left the hotel to get dinner at a nearby place that served some great fish & chips at a recommended underground (literally) café before continuing on and crossing over to the other side of the Themes and starting walking towards the Tower Bridge. On the way it started pouring down and while it did calm down it never really stopped raining. I made it to the bridge, took some wet shots and returned to the hotel where I arrived around 2200 and passed out half an hour later.

Blackfriars Bridge with the dome of St. Paul's Cathedral.

The clouds were heavy on the cityscape.

Tower of London and Tower Bridge.

Seeing the long line into the breakfast restaurant I skipped it and left for a walk around until 1130 when another, and equally recommended, fish & chips restaurant opened up for the day. The fish was pretty damn impressive and really delicious. From there I walked to the Tower of London where I had a walk around – too cheap and not enough time to get tickets – before returning to the hotel mid-afternoon and rested. It kept raining the entire day, but at least it was never as intense as last night. Dinner was had an Italian restaurant near the hotel.

Tower of London with the Tower Bridge to the left.