Hello and welcome to the Independence Daily Travel podcast with me Simon Calder, coming to you from a slightly noisy street in beautiful Como.

But I'm not going to focus on how lovely the Italian lakes are in mid-April.

I'm going to be talking today just about the stresses that I'm picking up

from travellers and really try to put people's minds at rest about what this coming weekend,

if you're lucky enough to be travelling away for Easter, will involve. First of all, don't fall at the first hurdle.

There's serious problems reaching the key airports, the three biggest in the London area,

by public transport. I don't know why they have chosen to do this, but if you're going to Stansted,

the Stansted Express will not be running.

There's a sort of bus to replacement service, but you'd be much better off, I believe, just going to a National Express coach director of the airport.

They are fabulous and they always, always provide the solution when the trains let you down. Between London

and Gatwick Airport, the Gatwick Express isn't running. I wouldn't be catching it anyway because

it's far too expensive and doesn't offer a very significant improvement. There are no trains

from London, Victoria to East Croydon and onwards to Gatwick and Brighton.

But don't worry because there is a perfectly reasonable option in the shape of the Thameslink train,

which runs through London from Cambridge, from Bedford, from Peterborough, into this interesting

trans-London link, going through some Pancras, Farringdon, City Tens Link, Blackfriars,

and then on from there to East Croydon via London Bridge and then onto the airport.

So that's all very straightforward and all very good.

Once you've reached the airport, oh and sorry, one more thing, the Heathrow, Piccadilly line isn't

running, can you believe, all the way through again,

from Good Friday to Easter Monday.

And that's always been the budget option for getting to the airport.

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