Vienna - Day 7

Up early to a beautiful morning, with the street outside quieter than usual, with no workmen about as it was a Saturday:

Finished packing and then out for a final stroll around the streets, before ending up at the Joseph Brot Bakery and Patisserie just along the street from our hotel.

A ham roll for Amanda:

and a cheese and tomato one for me:

washed down with delicious home-made grapefruit juice (a rare treat for me, as anything more than a small glass can render statins less effective):

Returned to the hotel, collected our cases, checked out and waited for the taxi we had ordered for 11.30.

A straightforward run to the airport.  Checked our bags, passed through passport control and security and found the Club Class lounge overlooking the runway, where we took advantage of the complimentary snacks and drinks:

Early boarding, and the view from our seats:

Hot towels, a nice lunch and we were happy:

Take off:

Mid flight:

Returning to a wet and grey UK; the following were taken on maximum zoom.

The London Stadium at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in Stratford, complete with the ArcelorMittal Orbit to the right:

The Walkie-Talkie:

The Shard:

The London Eye:

Houses of Parliament:

The only splash of colour in an almost entirely grey and murky capital - the big screens at Piccadilly Circus:

Buckingham Palace nestling between Green Park and St James's Park:

Hyde Park and the Serpentine:

The Albert Memorial and Royal Albert Hall:

The UK headquarters of GlaxoSmithKline:

Coming in to land at Heathrow:

Some time later I played this video to one of our little friends.  I pointed out that at the end, the lady on the loudspeaker had welcomed us back to London.  "And was that lady the Queen?" enquired a serious seven-year-old LBD, as if that would be the most natural thing in the world.  I thought that the idea of Her Maj personally welcoming home each of her subjects was a fine one.

In spite of the miserable weather we were early into Heathrow, resulting in disembarkation at a different stand to that expected.  As a result we had to walk some way to collect our luggage.

Through passport control and customs, and then to the Short Stay Car Park to collect the car.

Torrential rain all the way home, but an otherwise straightforward journey, stopping only at the local Tesco to collect fresh bread and milk.

Bacon sandwiches and tea were consumed while we looked through a few recorded TV programmes and then hauled our luggage upstairs for unpacking - where I found that my relatively new, only used about three times, super duper Hideo Wakamtsu suitcase was, to use the technical term, knackered beyond repair:

(It occurred to me later that using screws/rivets to attach the reinforcement patches to the corners was probably a design flaw, leaving as it would a weakness in the hard shell wherever it was attached; when I came to purchase a replacement it came as little surprise that this model had been discontinued.  It DID come as an unpleasant surprise that the value depreciation rate applied by BA was such that, even with their compensation, it cost me around £40 extra to acquire a broadly equivalent case from Samsonite.)

Eventually to bed, exhausted but happy.