postcards from England | Windsor Castle

Etihad 17 arrives in London on October 9 (c) 2018 by David Ourisman, all rights reserved

The first of a series of postcards from my recent trip to England that I'll be posting over the next several weeks. On what was supposed to be our final day in England, October 10th, one of my clients met us at Cliveden and took us on a delightful driving tour through some of the nearby picturesque villages. Of special note was the village of Cookham and its old Anglican church.

After enjoying tea with our host at her club, Stoke Park, she drove us to Windsor. One of the royal palacesm Windsor was the setting for the recent royal marriage of Andrew and Meaghan. A somewhat touristy town, but it was fun walking through its streets and seeing the palace.

Windsor is quite close to Heathrow airport. I spotted this Etihad Airbus 380 plane on its final approach. The jet wasn't as close as it seems in the photograph, but you can sense the size of this 380 double-deck aircraft. We finished our day with an enjoyable pub dinner at The Crown at Bray.

copyright (c) 2018 by Ourisman Travel LLC. All rights reserved. We provide Virtuoso and other Preferred Partner amenities as an affiliate of Brownell, a Virtuoso® Member. If you have comments on this column, or questions about booking travel, email me or visit my website.

two weeks from today | Dubai and the Maldives

Two weeks from today, I'll be a bit more than one hour into my non-stop flight from San Francisco to Abu Dhabi.

What a freaking crazy route map! The flight is 8,158 miles in length, and the direct route has a heading 3.1 degrees north of the North Pole. This means that we would fly just to the east of the north pole — but given the west-to-east nature of the winds, I suspect we'll be heading more to the east. Bottom line, I'm flying to the opposite side of the earth.

16 hours of scheduled flight time... I'm beginning to contemplate that reality. Fortunately, I'll be ensconced in the comfortable lie-flat business class seats of the Etihad-operated Jet Airways 777 jet, but 16 hours in the air is still a long time. 12 hours after take-off will be my normal bedtime ... and it will be four hours until landing (and only 1 p.m. in the afternoon when I do land).

Jet lag notwithstanding, I plan to hit the ground running, having a site inspection of Park Hyatt Dubai that evening ... and five more site inspections the next day (as well as a photo op at Ski Dubai).

Starting to get excited and (groan) starting to think about packing.

copyright (c) 2016 by David Ourisman LLC. All rights reserved. We provide Virtuoso and other Preferred Partner amenities as an affiliate of Brownell Travel. If you have comments on this column, or questions about booking travel, email me or visit my website.