i just got back from a trip to spain. i travelled back with three kids, 13, 10, 7. at the airport i decided to not pay the extreme amount for a cab (£95), but take the train, then 2 tube trains, then another train. london is a bitch to get about in if you have luggage or are disabled. the tube map station symbols show whether there is disabled access (lifts or ramps). there are very very few. our transfers involved more flights of stairs, escalators and longs walks than i can recall. so, with more luggage than could be carried effectively, this turned out to require effort and ingenuity. we could have got the cab all the way from the airport and arrived in a half-slumber, but we didn’t.
when we got to the final station we could have hopped into a cheap cab for a 3 minute final leg, but it was sunny and nice and we walked, slowly dragging bags and shifting them from should to shoulder, passing them around between us, piling them on top of others with wheels and steadying the resultant moving mountain. everyone arrived smiling.
