My European Tour, Part Deux

A year and a half ago, I came to Europe on a solo trip to London, Paris, Brussels and Amsterdam. This time around  I'm joining a Rick Steve's tour of Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Nice to have someone else plan out all the details for a change! I will see how I like the group tour structure. If not, I will go back to doing my own thang. Thinking of England, plus Ireland and Scotland for my next trip.

Leaving Portland

Leaving Portland

As with the last trip, I first flew from Portland to Seattle, then from Seattle to Heathrow. I could have flown into Frankfurt since the tour starts in Germany, but the airfare was outrageous, so I decided instead to fly Virgin Atlantic into London again. Plus, I just love the Brits and really dig London!

I love how Virgin Atlantic names all their planes with female pop culture icons and similar. My plane for this flight was Birthday Girl, and they also have in West End girl playing that was inspired by the Pet Shop Boys. Unfortunately, no birthday cake was on board the Birthday Girl flight. Step it up, Virgin! :) 

My home for the next 9 hours

While the service and food on my Virgin Atlantic flight were as good as the last, the flight was so bumpy that it was impossible to sleep, which meant I arrived in London feeling like a total zombie. Thankfully, Virgin Atlantic has a lounge where you can shower, change etc. Helps you feel somewhat human again. (Yes, they clean them after each person! Of course I asked that question because I'm a bit of a germaphobe. The Virgin staff laughed at me, which I sort of expected.)

From there, I navigated through Heathrow to the train and took a very long ride to Covent Garden--cheaper than Uber, but took forEVER. Still had my Oyster Transit card from my last trip, which still had money on it. Woot! Everyone's complaining about the cool rainy weather here, but it's exactly like Portland right now. Rookies!

I arrived in Covent Garden, dropped my bag at a local business that is signed up for or a service called Stasher (they stow your bags in lieu of a locker while you do other things), and I was on my way to exploring Covent Garden. No way in hell I'm I'm carrying around at 25 lb backpack while I window shop!

Afternoon tea for one at Brigit's Bakery

Really cute little area with funky little shops and restaurants, including Brigit's Bakery, where I had a lovely afternoon tea!

After I was done with that, I was feeling completely exhausted and decided to just contact my Airbnb host to see if I could check in earlier than planned. I was literally falling asleep in my Uber on the way there. It's so important to sleep on those redeye flights--maybe next time I'll try sleeping meds...?

Tomorrow, it's a full day of train rides from London to Trier, Germany. Looking forward to it, but starting to realize I'm not as young as I used to be. The backpack is definitely harder to carry than last time! Same weight, too. Off to bed!

My upcoming Rick Steves tour route: