Travel EasyJet Ely to Vienna

I’ve heard a lot about EasyJet. It is apparently a larger airline than British Airways and it has a direct cheap flight from London to Vienna. There was even a long series about them on television some time ago.

 

 

So I think it is about time I tried them out.

 

The flights to Vienna leave from Gatwick Airport South of London so my first part of the journey is from Ely to London, Kings Cross. The train is very comfortable and smooth running and doesn’t rattle too much as many other trains. It takes us twenty minutes got reach Cambridge then another fifty minutes before we arrive in Kings Cross.

 

Kings Cross is a magnificent station.

 

 

Just next to it across a beautiful concourse is St Pancras station.

 

 

Years ago I would have needed to take the tube to Victoria station then catch the train South to Gatwick. Nowadays, there is a direct train from St Pancras to Gatwick Airport. The train does take a strange route through London but it saves a lot of trouble especially when the tube is extremely busy.

 

The Gatwick Airport railway stain is under the concourse of the North terminal of Gatwick Airport so it takes hardly any time before I am being turned over by TSA. EasyJet sends you the boarding pass after checking in online so there is no delay unless you choose to check luggage for which you pay extra.

 

My flight boards at the gate which is the very furthest from the centre. It is a very long walk but I finally get there to hear a very authoritative voice telling us exactly what we have to do. As a result, we are soon sitting down awaiting a takeoff which is on time.

 

This is a “no frills” airline so I notice experienced EasyJet flyers opening their sandwiches and some people appeared to have prepared lunch boxes which I assume they bought in the terminal after passing through TSA. Everything anyone might want WAS available but at a price based on the “user pays” principle rather than, as many other airlines, charging everybody for services they might not want.

 

The plane is the usual small airbus which zooms up to cruising height and makes light of the journey to Vienna.

 

Arriving at the entrance to the airport I take the coach to Westbahnhof  near to the apartment where I am staying for the next few days. This costs 8 euros whereas the tourist CAT train into Vienna will cost a total of 16 euros. The normal train which I usually take would have cost 4.40 euros.

 

Back in Vienna I enjoy performances of ’Tosca’ (that ALWAYS seems to be on when I am here!!!), a’ charming production of Janacek’s The Cunning Little Vixen’, and an extremely long five hour Ballet Gala with all the ‘pops’ which everybody enjoys. After all, the Staatsoper is closed for July and August.

 

But I DID enjoy the last two operas of Wagner’s ‘Ring’. I missed ‘Valkyrie’ but I was glad of this because Siegmund actually lost his voice and had to mime with a singer at the the side of the stage!!!

 

But our Siegfried in ’Siegfried’

 

 

and ‘Götterdämmerung’ did NOT let us down and a magnificent Brunehilde screamed her way magnificently to her fiery end.

 

 

10 hours of great wonderful sound and a story of a simpleton who talks to birds, slays a dragon, finds his soul mate then gives her away only to be stabbed in the back for his pains. To be honest, it is worth the ten hours just to hear ‘tunes’ played by those magnificent eight horns!!! What a sound!!!

 

After all that, I am ready to spend the Summer in Seattle. Al Jarreau has booked the Staatsoper for the first week in July!!