Flying on into the night after leaving the coast of Brazil, it was still relatively early in Chile time terms. Dark outside now, there wouldn't have been anything much to see of the South Atlantic from 35,000 feet even if it had been lighter, nor the deserts of North Africa later on.
Looking at the menu options on the seat-back TV/music system, there was a good choice of newish films, so I tried some:
Outside, the first glimmerings of dawn were showing on the horizon as we flew in over Sardinia. The Captain even helpfully turned on the 777's landing lights to make a much more interesting photo:
Here's our path in over the Mediterranean and an arrow where that was taken.
As we turned in over the coast, the lights of Rome welcomed us with a sparkling display in the pre-dawn light:
The landing was fine, I don't remember it being anything other than smooth, but once we'd slowed enough to leave the runway, we taxied for what seemed like miles. In fact, looking at the GPS log, it was actually about five miles in total from where we landed to a parking area where we transferred to a bus, and finally got into the terminal.
It was cold getting out of the plane, 6°C, a bit of a shock having left Santiago in sandals and a thin shirt. But soon enough we were in the warmth of the busy terminal and found the Alitalia lounge, where we were pleased to find that our Business Class tickets (no Premium Economy seats on the next flight) for the flight to Heathrow entitled us to spend as long as we wanted there. Free breakfast, coffee, fruit juices, etc were all very welcome and freed up the few Euros we had to spend on a few last minute duty-free items.
All in all, we were very pleased with our Alitalia flights.
After a rather boring but comfortable five hour wait, we got aboard our Airbus A321 with probably the best seats on the plane, 1A & 1C, having the most legroom.
The view from the port side of this plane showed Corsica nicely as we climbed away from Rome, then up and over the Alps - not as spectacular as the Andes though.
Two and a half hours later we descended over the French coast just south of Le Touquet crossing the Channel to enter British airspace with views across Hastings and down to Eastbourne.
After one and a half circuits in a holding pattern we were given clearance to make our approach to runway 27L. Skirting the traffic zones for other airports around London, we made our way north to Battersea from where we had nice views of Central London: the Shard glinting in the afternoon sun ....
and the London Eye and Waterloo Station amongst other London landmarks ......
When seen through the pilots' eyes though, the map is very much more complex. They don't have time to enjoy the views as I did. There's a lot of very important information in this map of the crowded airspace over London:
Heathrow itself is equally complex. The pilots need to know which of 20 different radio frequencies to be communicating on, amongst many other things.
And even when safely down, getting the right taxiway to the right terminal and the right gate number is a challenge in itself. I'm always in awe of these highly skilled professionals who keep us safe
The landing was especially smooth, I was hardly able to tell exactly when the wheels touched down. I was even more impressed when we passed a windsock and saw that there was a moderate crosswind, so the pilots would have had to land with the plane at an angle to the runway, sort of sideways, and straighten it up as the nosewheel touched down, 10/10.Looking at the menu options on the seat-back TV/music system, there was a good choice of newish films, so I tried some:
- Bridget Jones's Baby - very good
- The Legend of Tarzan - okay
- Storks - succeeded in putting me to sleep!
- Leonard Cohen - You Want it Darker - beautiful.
Outside, the first glimmerings of dawn were showing on the horizon as we flew in over Sardinia. The Captain even helpfully turned on the 777's landing lights to make a much more interesting photo:
Here's our path in over the Mediterranean and an arrow where that was taken.
As we turned in over the coast, the lights of Rome welcomed us with a sparkling display in the pre-dawn light:
The landing was fine, I don't remember it being anything other than smooth, but once we'd slowed enough to leave the runway, we taxied for what seemed like miles. In fact, looking at the GPS log, it was actually about five miles in total from where we landed to a parking area where we transferred to a bus, and finally got into the terminal.
It was cold getting out of the plane, 6°C, a bit of a shock having left Santiago in sandals and a thin shirt. But soon enough we were in the warmth of the busy terminal and found the Alitalia lounge, where we were pleased to find that our Business Class tickets (no Premium Economy seats on the next flight) for the flight to Heathrow entitled us to spend as long as we wanted there. Free breakfast, coffee, fruit juices, etc were all very welcome and freed up the few Euros we had to spend on a few last minute duty-free items.
All in all, we were very pleased with our Alitalia flights.
After a rather boring but comfortable five hour wait, we got aboard our Airbus A321 with probably the best seats on the plane, 1A & 1C, having the most legroom.
The view from the port side of this plane showed Corsica nicely as we climbed away from Rome, then up and over the Alps - not as spectacular as the Andes though.
Two and a half hours later we descended over the French coast just south of Le Touquet crossing the Channel to enter British airspace with views across Hastings and down to Eastbourne.
After one and a half circuits in a holding pattern we were given clearance to make our approach to runway 27L. Skirting the traffic zones for other airports around London, we made our way north to Battersea from where we had nice views of Central London: the Shard glinting in the afternoon sun ....
and the London Eye and Waterloo Station amongst other London landmarks ......
When seen through the pilots' eyes though, the map is very much more complex. They don't have time to enjoy the views as I did. There's a lot of very important information in this map of the crowded airspace over London:
Heathrow itself is equally complex. The pilots need to know which of 20 different radio frequencies to be communicating on, amongst many other things.
And even when safely down, getting the right taxiway to the right terminal and the right gate number is a challenge in itself. I'm always in awe of these highly skilled professionals who keep us safe
I always find it disconcerting landing somewhere like Heathrow with so many buildings, roads and houses so close to the flight path, as viewed from the side of the plane. From the pilot's viewpoint, it probably looks far safer.
Anyway, we touched down beautifully and taxied rapidly to a gate, slightly ahead of schedule. Significantly more efficient than our arrival in Rome. Barbara & I leapt off the plane first and were the first to get to the loos!
Once our big bags arrived on the dreaded conveyor belts, I inspected them carefully. We hadn't seen them since the check-in at Santiago, having just minutes before repacked them with several extra rather large bottles of wine, in addition to rum from Barbados, and the other special wines from the vineyard outlet. I'd worried the whole time that we'd have very wet and smelly, red-wine stained clothes. But, miracle of miracles, both cases seemed to be dry with no smell of anything alcoholic.
We'd been in touch with Aurian while in Rome and, as he was working in North London that day, offered to pick us up from Terminal 4 so that we didn't have to bus to Swindon as previously arranged. It all worked perfectly; he arrived about ten minutes before we got through customs.
About 90 minutes later he delivered us safely to the door of our very cold house. I'd left the heating set to come on briefly every day, if it got very cold, to protect the house and water pipes from frost, but when I tried to set the heating to get some hot water (baths were the one luxury we'd missed in our five weeks away), the boiler failed to light with an F5 fault code. The internet came to our rescue and after a bit of boiler dismemberment I found the problem and reset the offending switch and we had hot water & heating at last.
And when we unpacked, all the wine and rum had survived, thank you Alitalia and all the baggage handlers at Santiago, Rome and Heathrow.
Thanks also to all the lovely crew on Black Watch.
But especial thanks to Sara & Eddy who really put themselves out to give us such a lovely time in Chile. A very special holiday.
Would anyone like to see 2,000+ photos? ☺☺
