Daughter Michelle and her family left for Portugal four days before we are leaving in order to get in some extra beach time, and before the entire family gets together for a week halfway up the Atlantic coast. They flew from Dulles and had a several hour stopover in England at Heathrow before continuing on to Lisbon. They arrived in Lisbon about an hour ago.

Their time in Heathrow reminded me of the many times we flew there to go to various destinations in the UK, and the times we have been there just to transfer onto a further destination. The last time we had a transfer at Heathrow was about five years ago, when we flew British Air to Israel. We had about a three hour wait, as I recall, which was fine, if a bit long. Most of that wait was passed in the enormous Terminal 3 waiting area, where it always looks like half the world is hanging around. I remember this time being different. Usually, putting aside the napping travelers, you see a mix of newspaper and books. Five (or maybe now it was six – yes 2023-2017=6) years ago, no one was reading a newspaper – no one – and only a hand full of people were reading books. The waiting area was filled with smartphones, laptops, tablets and kindles. How different it seemed.

Perhaps the most unique trip Edie and I had to England was on another trip to Israel, where on our return trip we had about five hours to spare. We landed late morning, went through British customs, hailed a taxi, went to Windsor (only about 15 minutes or so from Heathrow, believe it or not), left the cab at the Christopher Wren Inn, where we had stayed before, had a wonderful lunch sitting outside on their patio overlooking the Thames, walked through some of the nearby shops (both on the Eton and Windsor sides of the river), hailed another taxi, and got back to the airport in time to go back through customs and make our flight to DC. What was it? The least expensive trip to England ever, or the most expensive lunch of our lives?

I remember other visits to Heathrow. I remember the time Edie and I landed at Heathrow over 40 years ago on our first joint overseas trip, and had arranged to rent a car and drive directly to Cambridge, where we were to spend the first night. I had never before driven in a country where you drove on the left (I have since done that many times, in many places), I was completely sleep deprived, and I was over confident. That is, I was over confident until we hit our first roundabout and everything seemed wrong to me. How we made it to Cambridge in one piece is a miracle that can only be attributed to whatever or whomever you attribute miracles. I remember at one time being so tired that I had to pull over to the side of the road and close my eyes before continuing. But I did recover and we did get to Cambridge. (That trip took us up to the tippy-top of Scotland, near John o’Groats (is that right?) before settling down for several days in London at the end. I think that was 1978.

And then there was the family trip to Cornwall – Penzance and all that (no pirates visible, but we did find Jews Street leading to the harbor). Seemed like it would be a relatively easy drive, although lengthy, but it was August 1, a bank holiday and the start of Britain’s vacation week. Who knew? It took forever in bumper to bumper (do they call them bumpers in England? Probably not) to get to the southwest. There is a lot to remember about that trip – maybe I will talk about it, including the famous Hessel victory in the local trivial pursuit contest.

And there were several family trips to England when the kids were younger, one where we were joined by my sister. On those trips, we saw all the sights, we tried many restaurants, and we went to a lot of theater. Excuse me, a lot of theatre.

But most of all, I remember my first trip to London in 1962. It was the start of a three month trip across Europe with three of my college friends (they are all still friends), and we were 19 (80 is to 2023, as 19 is to 1962). I had never been out of the United States and was both excited and in a state of disbelief as we boarded the BOAC Harvard charter flight to Heathrow. Not a jet, stewards and not stewardesses – all with British accents (how cool was that?) – and none of them caring how old you were when they were serving free drinks. I think I had three scotches as we crossed the Atlantic.

Heathrow had just opened a new terminal (now called Terminal 3, it was first called the Ocean Terminal) in late 1961. It was quite modern for 1962, and a big surprise to me. It shattered my ideas on what England would be like. I thought everything would be, I think, Dickensian. But then as we entered Victoria Station (again, going by memory here) on a train from the airport, merry olde England came into view. And London in 1962 was much different then from what it is today. When I say much different, I really mean extraordinarily much different. Central London was filled with business men in striped suits, bowler hats (or are they derby hats?), shiny shoes and walking sticks. Then there were those who were not businessmen, who looked like they had slept in the same clothes for weeks and weeks and, yes, there were the “mods”. And the women? My memory of them is even more stereotypical. I remember the women as all having light brown hair, pale and round faces, blue eyes, very red lips and long dresses. Anyone who looked or dressed differently was clearly a tourist.

I remember many, but not all, of the things we did that week in London in 1962. The bed and breakfast in a stone fronted row house near Victoria Station, where the beds were so soft and fluffy that I thought the floor would be better, the bathroom down the hall where the toilet was flushed by pulling a cord from the ceiling and the pay-as-you go heater on the wall in the room. The breakfasts were very good – eggs with very orange yolks, corn flakes (always corn flakes) and toast sitting up in a slotted silver toast dish, which must have a name.

We didn’t the queen but we saw her guard changing and all the important buildings and many of the museums, including the Tate and the National Gallery. We went to a London Philharmonic Prom concert where Henryk Szeryng was the violin soloist and we all had to stand up. I saw The Mousetrap for the first time. We ate at a number of not-so-good restaurants, including one at the Hotel Montana (the name interested me), and at Wimpy’s and at the Lyon Corner House (even then the oldest restaurant in London). We spent a lot of time in parks, and did listen to some orators at Hyde Park corner. And I did keep a diary which I should check to see what I have forgotten.

Enough of nostalgia. I figure I have been to London six or seven times over my life, and to Heathrow several more. Six or seven times sounds like a lot, but when your travel life has extended now over 60 years, it means about once a decade. Shame on me. I should have gone there more often. I think London is the greatest.