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| A great day to travel from Peter- borough: everything running to schedule! |
There was no booking to
do for the exhibition itself, simply completing the form on the back
of the free ticket (giving them my details was effectively the price
of the ticket, but that was OK because the details included ticking
boxes for what interests me, so the hope is that I'll receive
relevant advertising that I'll actually want to see). So, to the web
to book the travel! As it happens, we have family living not far from
Olympia so we could plan to visit after we had seen the exhibition,
and then travel home later in the evening, after the rush had died
down.
We always have to change trains at Peterborough on our way to London, and the train we get from there to London will depend upon which one has the best-priced First Class tickets available. We were in no hurry to get there and Peterborough station is well-located for passing time in the Queensgate shopping centre, and so we spent a little while in John Lewis between train before boarding our Virgin East Coast service to London: basically on a trip this short it is a 125mph coffee break, with included coffee, cake, biscuits and fruit! We generally take the bottled water as well and often take it with us because we are bound to need it at some point in the day, even if not on the train.
Not being in a hurry on this occasion we caught a bus to Olympia: the number 10 from Kings Cross serves much of the West End on its way to Hammersmith and is a route we often use. Although buses are supposed to be every few minutes on this route, we had to wait a long time, with our Bus Mapper app showing "due" for several minutes. There seemed to be some severe congestion somewhere and suddenly a flurry of eastbound buses arrived at Kings Cross to go round the block ready to head back to Hammersmith. We boarded the first and rode towards the front of the upper deck. This bus was terminated early after further delays owing to a roadworks diversion so we had to change buses at Marble Arch, but got to Olympia in the end, having see a lot more of London than we would have done on the Underground. Not the way to go if your journey is time-critical, though!
We visited all the companies we wanted to visit at Destinations, but we struggled with lunch: there simply were not enough catering facilities to cope with the number of visitors and we ended up with a take-away salad (very nice salad) sitting on the floor of the hall. Fortunately I was surveyed after my visit and was able to give a low score for customer satisfaction at Olympia, but the exhibition itself was good. They just need a decent place for it.
After we had seen all we wanted to see we visited family and then took the Hammersmith and City Underground line back to Kings Cross for the train home. A weekday, so a later train and a slicker connection at Peterborough and we were swiftly and comfortably home, with a tot of whisky on the train (included in fare) to round off the day.
We always have to change trains at Peterborough on our way to London, and the train we get from there to London will depend upon which one has the best-priced First Class tickets available. We were in no hurry to get there and Peterborough station is well-located for passing time in the Queensgate shopping centre, and so we spent a little while in John Lewis between train before boarding our Virgin East Coast service to London: basically on a trip this short it is a 125mph coffee break, with included coffee, cake, biscuits and fruit! We generally take the bottled water as well and often take it with us because we are bound to need it at some point in the day, even if not on the train.Not being in a hurry on this occasion we caught a bus to Olympia: the number 10 from Kings Cross serves much of the West End on its way to Hammersmith and is a route we often use. Although buses are supposed to be every few minutes on this route, we had to wait a long time, with our Bus Mapper app showing "due" for several minutes. There seemed to be some severe congestion somewhere and suddenly a flurry of eastbound buses arrived at Kings Cross to go round the block ready to head back to Hammersmith. We boarded the first and rode towards the front of the upper deck. This bus was terminated early after further delays owing to a roadworks diversion so we had to change buses at Marble Arch, but got to Olympia in the end, having see a lot more of London than we would have done on the Underground. Not the way to go if your journey is time-critical, though!
We visited all the companies we wanted to visit at Destinations, but we struggled with lunch: there simply were not enough catering facilities to cope with the number of visitors and we ended up with a take-away salad (very nice salad) sitting on the floor of the hall. Fortunately I was surveyed after my visit and was able to give a low score for customer satisfaction at Olympia, but the exhibition itself was good. They just need a decent place for it.
After we had seen all we wanted to see we visited family and then took the Hammersmith and City Underground line back to Kings Cross for the train home. A weekday, so a later train and a slicker connection at Peterborough and we were swiftly and comfortably home, with a tot of whisky on the train (included in fare) to round off the day.
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