Ireland day 1456. Tuesday 23 September 2025- To London

Today’s summary	Took the bus to the airport then flew to Gatwick where we are staying in a hotel tonight prior to another early flight tomorrow morning. A straightforward journey though the 8:10am bus was slow because of the rush hour, and our 11:15 scheduled flight was delayed 40 minutes. Paid a quick trip into London in the afternoon but otherwise a quiet day.
Today’s weather	Bright and sunny. Light easterly wind. Appx 14c. Cloudy but dry in London

Today’s overview location (The blue mark shows the location of our route)		Close-up location (The blue line shows where we walked) (No GPX today)

Commentary

We’re off in our travels again! We will be away from Dublin for a couple of weeks, including 7 days in the sun. It feels like a much-needed break.

Our journey began as all the best do – with the 102 bus from Malahide to the airport. It turned up on time at 8:10am and took a full hour to get to the airport. A bit slower than normal because of the rush hour traffic.

Once at the airport, we had to drop a bag off for hold baggage (we are leaving it in London). The human-free bag drop system took a bit of negotiating, but was smooth enough. Then security was quick and I was interested to see that the limit on liquids in hand bags had been raised to 2 litres. I think it’s Dublin-only at the moment, but hopefully will eventually be implemented more widely.

Our 11:15 flight was delayed by 40 minutes but once we got away, it was actually quite relaxing. And yes – it was Ryanair! Once at Gatwick, we picked up our big bag and then caught a Thameslink train into town. The rail journey was good, quick and efficient and I do wish Dublin had something similar. I also wish that people could manage to sit on a train for half an hour without feeling the need to have their TikTok reels blaring out the whole way.

Anyway grumpy old man rant over – we arrived in central London about 3pm and dropped off the big bag. We treated ourselves to a cup of tea and some biscuits, then headed back to City Thameslink and caught a train back to Gatwick airport. Again, we caught rush-hour so it was standing room only as far as London Bridge, but we eventually managed to find seats, so the rest of the journey was relatively comfortable

We’re staying at the Hilton hotel airport tonight, in readiness for an early flight tomorrow morning. It’s fine – an absolutely standard airport hotel. We’re going to treat ourselves to a Japanese dinner tonight – well we are on holiday, after all!

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


A long way from home! (It had just landed from St John’s, Newfoundland I think)	A bit closer to home – Thameslink train at Gatwick airport. Quick, efficient, comfortable and noisy

The now-redundant Aldwych tube station in Surrey Street, London – which doubles as a film set, from time to time	The simple delights of the Gatwick Hilton



Definitely not first class travel – but Ryanair got us to Gatwick safely and reasonably comfortably, which is all that really matters